


Clipped

by NotTheVeryButton



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fic, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Domestic Crowley, Drunk Kevin, Gen, Human Castiel, M/M, Men of Letters Headquarters, Post Season/Series 08, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotTheVeryButton/pseuds/NotTheVeryButton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the eviction of heaven, Dean and Sam have to adjust to the new co-occupants of The Men of Letters Bunker: A teenage prophet, a cured and contrite former king of hell, and a graceless Castiel. This new and improved Team Free Will are forced to hide from the vengeful fallen angels and Abaddon. While they remain under the radar and attempt to form a new plan of action, tensions run high. Motives are questioned, mistakes lamented, and the lines of friendship crossed. After all, there's only so long one can stay hidden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie. This is the fastest thing I've ever written that hasn't been complete and utter shit. I'm super pumped to run with this fic and I'll try my best to update quickly. I have to give my props to my wonderful amazing gorgeous beautiful beta and longtime partner in writing related crime, [Chandler](http://the-street-girl.tumblr.com/). She's really great at pointing out all of my flaws without making me want to curl into a ball and weep. Who could ask for anything more?
> 
> I obviously don't own this show or these characters. I'm just borrowing them. I'll give them back. I promise.

_Christ,_

_a lamb that has been slain,_

_his guts drooping like a sea worm,_

_but who lives on, lives on_

_like the wings of an Atlantic seagull._

_Though he has stopped flying,_

_the wings go on flapping_

_despite it all,_

_despite it all._

_\-- Anne Sexton, “Is It True?”_

 

 

***

 

           The first month is bad.

           Dean has no clue how he’s supposed to handle it, but he doesn’t crack. He is all smiles and hot soup and pats on the back. Crowley is surprisingly helpful. He does the dishes. He goes on grocery runs. Sometimes Dean hears the former demon sobbing at night from the room they’ve set him up in, but he doesn’t put his damage on display. Crowley doesn’t admit that he’s trying to atone for all of the shit he’s done in the past. He just makes shopping lists and scrubs the pots and pans.

           Initially, Crowley’s induction didn’t go well. Upon sight, Kevin launched himself at the dethroned king of hell. The kid got a few good hits in, too, before Crowley fell to the floor in complete surrender. He wept openly, begging to be shown mercy. Kevin was completely and appropriately stunned. The situation was explained. Crowley admitted that he hadn’t actually killed Mrs. Tran. She was hiding in Washington – under the impression that Kevin had sent her to a cushy safe house on the Olympic Peninsula. Crowley had sent her the coordinates from Kevin’s phone with express instructions not to contact him until he’d given her the okay. After this revelation (and a long distance phone call) the prophet came around.

           Kevin spends most of his time desperately translating the angel tablet – hoping beyond hope that there’s a way to set things right or summon an angel’s grace. Dean tells him not to push too hard. He makes Kevin take breaks and days off. He wishes Kevin didn’t have to translate the damn thing at all. He wishes he could show the kid a way out. Dean doesn’t want to tell Kevin what he fears he already knows: there _isn’t_ a way out.

           Sam is getting better. That, at least, is a worry off of Dean’s shoulders. It seems that once the trials are truly abandoned, they release the doer from their Herculean grip. Sam’s progress is slow, but each day he can stomach a little more food, walk a little further, smile through the pain with less falsehood. The bunker is a blessing. Dean can only imagine how much worse things would be if he were carting Sam around in the Impala—from motel to motel— and watching him cough up a lung in the back seat. He isn’t quite sure how the bunker is able to keep the worst at bay – but it does. Nobody comes looking for them at their sanctuary.

           Outside however, they are public enemy #1.

           Abaddon isn’t the issue. Since taking up her throne in hell, she’s been more interested in tracking down the angels than anything else. They think it’s her intention to kill every last one of them and make sure they’re never given the chance to return home… or at least torture them to insanity. Dean has a theory that hell might actually give the Winchesters a break for once – seeing as they’ve stopped trying to close the pit and were pivotal in the eviction of heaven. Crowley agrees that they likely aren’t Abaddon’s immediate targets. No, the demons aren’t their biggest problem at the moment.

           The angels are the problem.

           Almost all of them blame Castiel for The Fall.

           A few days after the initial angel exodus, Garth had called. Despite how long he’d been MIA, he opened the conversation, not with a “hello,” or an “I’m alive,” but with an earsplitting cry of “IDJITS!” Dean didn’t even bother asking how Garth knew _they_ were the ones involved in the sky falling. He just listened to the new intel.

           Though they no longer share a telepathic link, the angels have found other ways to network. They’re on the lookout. They want revenge. Namely, Cas’s head on a silver platter. Crowley makes their list as well, but he’s essentially harmless. The angels almost seem to pity him. They haven’t thought to try and find him yet. That’s why he volunteers to run the errands. It’s why Dean, with horror in his heart, relinquishes the keys to his beloved mechanical baby once a week. It’s the safest course of action. The angels don’t know Crowley’s stuck around with the Winchesters. They have no clue that the link to Cas is right in front of them. So Crowley is the one who makes a trip to buy Cas and himself new clothes. He’s the one to pick up bananas for Sam and pie for Dean. His immediate satisfaction with domesticity has more to do with deep-seated guilt than anything else, but no one’s had much time for psychoanalyzing as of late.

           Sam’s getting better.

           Crowley is apologizing.

           Dean is dealing.

           Kevin is… Kevin.

           And Cas.

           Cas worries Dean the most. Cas worries them all, to be honest.

           He lies in bed the first week. He doesn’t take care of himself. Dean eventually forces him to take a shower and eat and do all the little human things it’s now necessary for him to do. The second week is better. Castiel gets up every morning, at least. He burns the coffee while Dean cooks breakfast and Crowley hovers in the kitchen – hoping to be of assistance. Cas doesn’t talk much, but then none of them have ever talked much. Dean accepts any sort of progress blindly. He’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

           He’s slowly learning that maybe an equestrian oral inspection should be the new protocol.

           The month passes like this. Crowley ‘borrows’ a car from a nearby used auto dealer. He makes the decent point that the Impala is highly recognizable. Dean is internally relieved about the new vehicle, a ‘96 Mazda Protégé with a not-insignificant amount of paint damage. It means he doesn’t have to let a former demon drive his car anymore. He still doesn’t entirely trust Crowley, despite the housewife routine. Castiel is silent, but functional. Kevin trudges through the word of God, but takes time to catch up on something called _Parks and Recreation._ Sam regains the ability to bitchface and all seems superficially well.

           The surface doesn’t stay placid for long, though.

 

***

 

           The second month is better.

           Sam’s no longer bedridden.

           Crowley relocates his sense of humor.

           Kevin seems far more relaxed.

           As a result, the sass in the bunker is palpable.

           But there’s still Castiel. Castiel stays quiet and it eats away at Dean. There’s so much to be said. There’s so much Dean wants to ask, but he also doesn’t want to poke a sleeping giant. He can’t imagine what Cas is feeling… mostly because Cas won’t tell him. Sure, the guy eats and sleeps on a regular schedule. He even complains about what Crowley picked up for him at the thrift store. They all laugh at his insistence that, despite what seems to be the going trend, he’s just not a plaid _person._ But there’s a hollowness to Cas’s interactions. He leaves the room when the angels are mentioned. He doesn’t offer information or solutions. He tries to seem as if he doesn’t care. They all know otherwise.

           There’s a night in the bunker when Dean looks around and something stirs within his chest. He’s sunk in a leather wingback tucked between the brick wall of the library and a book shelf. The chair’s angled to see the room at large and his vantage point reveals a pleasant scene. Earlier, Crowley had served drinks. As a result, the space turns giddy. Dean clutches a tumbler of scotch in both hands and watches from the side lines. Kevin and Sam sit at the long table furthest from the entryway. The number of empty beer bottles beside them grows as they converse between stacks of books about some mythological legend or other. Their deep, intellectual conversation slowly devolves as the booze flows. All the while Crowley circles the table next to them with a glass of wine, running the fingers of his empty hand over ancient tomes and occasionally making a quip that doubles Kevin over with laughter. From the way Sam narrows his eyes ever-so-slightly at the remarks, Dean doesn’t have to guess who they’re about.  There’s a word on the tip of his tongue. It’s not family. It’s not residence or permanence or brotherhood. Its _home._ He’s never really truly had one before.

           Dean considers this and what it means when Cas appears beside him as if from nowhere. He jumps and sloshes a bit of scotch down his front.

           “Dammit, Cas!”

           Kevin laughs even harder and sways in his seat. Sam chuckles, too, and pushes the tipsy kid upright in his chair. Even Cas smiles a little.

           “Son of a bitch! I thought the sneaking up behind me would stop when you lost your—”

           Dean isn’t sure what he’s planned to say next – wings? Grace? – but whatever it is, he doesn’t say it. The air is sucked out of the room like someone took a vacuum to the doorway. Sam’s eyes widen and all laughter stops abruptly. The temperature of room suddenly feels much too warm. Dean turns to stare up at Cas, who stands in the entryway like a wax statue. The angel continues to smile.

           “It’s okay, Dean,” Cas says quietly and then a little louder, “I’ll probably always be a – what was it you once called me, Crowley? A sneaky little bastard?”

           “A sneaky little _rat_ bastard, I believe,” Crowley corrects. “But I meant it with the utmost respect.”

           Kevin laughs again and the sound breaks the tension. Crowley inclines his head to his former business partner and lifts his wine glass. Sam’s eyes flick from Dean to Cas and back again. Soon, however, Sam has little time to gawk. Kevin finally does what he’s been threatening to do for the last hour and topples out of his seat and onto the floor. This prompts him to laugh even harder and Sam stoops to his aid. Cas edges forward into the room and Dean takes a large swig of his scotch. It burns on the way down and he revels in the temporary discomfort. 

           “I think it’s time we got you off to bed,” Sam says, hoisting Kevin onto his feet.

           “I donnnt need your azzistance!” Kevin slurs, trying to extract himself from Sam’s grip. “I am perfegtly capable – capable of – I’m a grown-ass man, dammit—!”

           Kevin manages to push Sam away long enough to stumble and lurch forward again. Sam catches his arm before he hits the floor.

           “Yeah, come on _grown-ass man_. Time to sleep it off.”

           Sam rolls his eyes as he loops his arm around Kevin’s back and practically carries the inebriated prophet out of the room. It is decidedly quieter when the youngest members of their team leave. Dean supposes it isn’t fair to count his 4-year head start on Sammy as a real age difference when Cas and Crowley are in the room, but he does it anyway. Because, as the big brother, that’s his job.

           Cas settles down at the table Crowley has been circling. He absent mindedly picks up a book and flips through its pages with blatantly feigned interest. Crowley’s footsteps echo in the silent space as he exits through the kitchen door – propping it open as he goes.  The space that’s left between the only two people in the room seems ridiculously large, so Dean moves to join Cas at his table of preference. The chair creaks as he settles into it, but Cas doesn’t appear to notice his new companion.  Dean downs the remainder of his scotch and makes a decision. He is going to get Cas back. He is going to pull Cas from whatever hole he’s retreated into. He is going to find a way. When Dean’s glass runs dry he slams it down upon the tabletop – hard. The sound startles Cas who, though not engrossed in the pages of the demon guide, clearly wasn’t totally present.

           Dean clears his throat and wills Cas to make eye contact. Cas does not oblige. What follows are a tense couple of minutes. Crowley reenters from the kitchen and senses something’s up, something he’s not needed for. He quickly places an overfull wine glass in front of Castiel and grabs Sam and Kevin’s many beer bottles on his way back out of the room. A few seconds pass before Dean hears the faint clinking of dishes and sighs. He silently wishes for Crowley to develop a hobby that doesn’t involve vigorous housework. ‘Clean’ is one thing. ‘Spotless’ is obnoxious. But one problem at a time. Cas and he are alone for the first time in what seems like forever and it’s time to rip off the bandage. It’s always best to do it in one fell swoop.

           “Cas.”

           Cas finally meets Dean’s eyes. What Dean sees reflected in his old friend’s stare surprises him. Dean knows that look well. All too well. That’s the look of pure, unadulterated anger.

           “ _What?_ ” Cas hisses as if they’ve already had their difficult conversation and are now drawing it to an embittered close.

           Dean sits back in his chair. He wasn’t expecting the hostility to emerge so immediately. He considers the man across from him. His mind lingers on the word ‘man’ for a second too long. This isn’t going to be fun.

           “Don’t do that,” Dean says.

           “Do what? I’m reading.” Cas lowers his head to gloss over the pages of his book again.

           “No you’re not.” Dean huffs out a little laugh and Cas narrows his eyes. He shuts the book with a snap that echoes in the chamber. He calmly places it on the table in front of him and puts both hands in his lap before he speaks.

           “Then tell me – _what am I doing?_ ”

           It’s a warning. It’s a warning that Dean refuses to heed any longer.

           “You’re doing exactly what you always do! Exactly what always gets you in trouble!”

           “Enlighten me.”

           “You’re shutting me out!” Dean realizes too late the mistake he’s made. He should have said ‘us.’ You’re shutting _us_ out. But he didn’t.  If Cas notices the specificity of the statement he doesn’t show it. Dean figures if there was ever a time to make things personal, it would be now, so he continues on his slightly altered path.

            “You gotta start trusting me, Cas,” Dean says calmly. “We’ve gotta start trusting each other. Because when it really counts, and it will, we have to be ready.  And that starts now.”

            Cas is silent and expressionless. Dean takes it as a cue to continue.

            “You mean well. You always have. So you’ve screwed up? Join the club. We’ve all done shit we ain’t proud of and most of the time the reason things go sour is cause someone isn’t trusting someone they should. I’m not laying blame here. I’m not pointing fingers. I’m willing to leave the past in the past and just focus on the now. But, now more than ever, you’ve _got_ to stay and work with me on this. And you have to remember that you don’t have a free pass anymore. You’ve used all the ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ cards you’re gonna get.”

            For a minute, Dean expects Cas to claim he doesn’t understand the reference. For a minute, Dean thinks things might be like they used to be. However, any hopes of a nostalgic and innocent ending to this talk are dashed with the look on Cas’s face.

            “You think I don’t understand the gravity of the situation?” Cas asks with venom. “Do you think that I don’t know how poor my judgment has been? I _know,_ Dean. _I dumped the contents of heaven._ I thought I could help. I thought I could be a new leader – a new God even. A _better_ god. If I had only listened to any other instinct but my own, I might have had a chance... But in the end, I have always been a soldier – just an infantryman. My ego has cost me everything.I even lost the one thing that made me of use in your war and what does that leave me? What does that make me?”

           Cas stands abruptly from his chair and begins to pace. His volume and temper build simultaneously.

            “I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been waiting for a confrontation, for my punishment. At first I assumed you’d kill me upon sight. Bite off the head of the serpent. Nip the eternal failure I am in the bud. But you didn’t. You’ve kept me protected and tolerated me. You’ve worked tirelessly to fix my errors. This is hardly the first mistake I’ve made or that you’ve had to mop up. It’s a pattern, Dean. It’s…” Cas trails off for a moment, but Dean doesn’t know what to say. Then the moment is gone and Cas becomes truly erratic.

            “I can’t even help you! I am less than human now! Less than the lowest form of existence! I was never meant to be _this._ Sometimes I think I would have preferred death – preferred it to being _stuck_ in such a worthless… _meat suit_!”

           Cas grabs his untouched glass of wine and flings it across the room. It shatters against the stone wall and the explosion of glass throws burgundy liquid all over a set of nearby book shelves.

           Dean is stunned momentarily. Crowley peaks his head in from the kitchen and, upon witnessing the scene, slowly retracts it again. Cas shakes and lowers himself to squat on the ground. He puts his hands on the back of his head, rips at his scalp with white knuckles, and releases one last shout of frustration. This sets Dean in motion again. He rushes to the side of his friend and kneels. Dean reaches out his hand and gently places it against Cas’s back. The fallen angel lifts his head and turns. There are tears in his eyes, magnifying and exaggerating their azure tint. He takes a shuddering breath.

            “What is this?”

            And somehow Dean understands.

            “This… this is being a human.”

            “How do you do it? How do you not just die? I _feel so much._ I’m overwhelmed with it.”

            “Well,” says Dean, “for starters you don’t keep it bottled up inside until you go all _Full Metal Jacket_ on me.”

            Cas looks confused.

            “Full Metal Ja—?”

            “It’s a movie. Don’t – don’t worry about it.” Dean has a hard time reigning in his smile. “What I’m saying is, you need to find a way to get that stuff out: shoot a gun, punch somebody, gank a demon, Hell! Get laid for once! You find ways.”

            Cas nods. He takes a moment, but slowly rises to a stand. Dean joins him.

            “I know…” Cas looks at his feet. “I’ve let you down. I don’t deserve anymore chances and I don’t expect a ‘pass’ from you. I –“

            “Wait,” Dean interrupts with incredulity. “Cas – Cas that wasn’t what I meant.”

            Cas snaps his head up.

            “What?”

            “When I said you don’t get a free pass, I was saying you’re not fucking invincible! You can’t be reckless! If you die – you die and I don’t know if any kind of demon deal or act of God’ll bring you back from that. You don’t get a free pass to act like an idiot all the damn time anymore!”

            Cas stares at Dean and his whole face turns bright pink.

            “Oh.”

            “I’m… done _punishing_ you, Cas. I—” Dean’s throat feels like it’s closing up. He chokes back whatever embarrassing insight into his mind he was about to supply.

            Cas smiles in a sad sort of way. Something unsaid passes between the two of them. Neither acknowledges this wordless exchange. Dean coughs a little in order to break what’s turning into an uncomfortably long staring contest. Cas glances downward. He sees a spread of glistening shrapnel and is reminded of the mess he’s made.

            “I’m sorry about that,” he says, taking a few steps to bend and retrieve the mostly-intact stem of the wine glass. “I’ll clean it up.”

            “I’ll take care of it,” says Dean with a small sigh.

            Cas gives him a pained look and Dean realizes the significance of his offer.

            “We’ll do it together, then. Go bug Crowley for a roll of paper towels and a broom.”

            Cas nods and exits while Dean stoops to start collecting the bigger pieces of debris. He runs Cas’s little explosion over again in his head. He hopes that he got his point across. He hopes this means that Cas is on the road to accepting his new circumstances. Lord knows Cas can deny trauma with the best of ‘em. Maybe that’s even Dean’s fault a little – learning to handle emotional strife using The Winchester Method is ill advised at best and permanently psychologically damaging at worst. The truth of the matter is that seeing Cas so… _broken_ hurts Dean in a hundred special little ways. Yes, Cas could be an asshole like his winged siblings. Cas could be oblivious and cumbersome. Cas could also be fierce and loyal and even funny on the rare occasion. Dean can’t ignore the faults in his friend. To do so would be dishonest. It would be unwise. But when Dean wakes each morning to the find Cas the same hollow shell that he was the day before? It makes him wonder if Cas hasn’t suffered enough at this point. What good would his anger do? No good. Not when the target of said anger seems dead behind the eyes on a good day.

            Cas returns with more supplies than Dean sent him for.

            “Crowley has requested we bleach the grout,” says Cas.

            Dean rolls his eyes.

            “Well Crowley can shove his _request_ straight up his—”

            “Sound travels, squirrel!” calls Crowley from the kitchen.

            Dean grumbles and snatches the spray bottle of bleach from Cas’s hands. They start to tackle the mess. They work well together, mostly in silence, but Dean can’t help but feel as if there’s still distance between them. Cas moves in a controlled – almost calculated – fashion. When he does this Dean feels the oppression of it too. It’s a weight that neither of them deserves to feel. So, while they kneel, watching wasted wine saturate off-brand paper towels, Dean takes another figurative step forward.

            “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen up.”

            Dean makes a point of staring directly at the floor. He feels Cas train a powerful gaze on his left shoulder. He tosses a couple of glass shards into the pile on his right.

            “You are _not_ worthless. I don’t know how many times I gotta say it before sticks in that birdbrain of yours… but I – we – _I_ need you. Angel or not,” Dean clears his throat a little, feeling heat creep up from his neck to his cheeks. “You said it yourself – you’re a soldier. Well… me too. I served 26 years in the John Winchester Family Marine Corps.”—the words ‘Daddy’s Blunt Little Instrument’ enter Dean’s head, but he ignores them—“And I get it. Trust me I… but a soldier isn’t anything without his comrades. Brothers in arms, okay? _Nobody gets left behind._ And that means you. So you can – you can take that shit about being stuck in a useless meat sack and shove it. It doesn’t hold water with me and it ain’t gonna hold water with anybody else in this bunker. You understand me?”

            When Dean finally looks up from the floor, Cas is smiling. It’s the sincerest smile Dean’s received from him in months – maybe years even.

            “I understand, Dean. Thank you.”

            “Good. Now hand me that broom before I throw up. No chick flick moments _._ ”

            “I don’t know what this has to do with the offspring of domesticated fowls, but okay.”

 

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! *wipes brow* This chapter is finally done! I really enjoyed writing this and I hope it shows! I've gotten a ton of encouragement from readers and I thank every single damn one of you. I was originally going to try and fit more into this chapter, but I think it stands on it's own fairly well. So I'll leave you with this and promise the next update is on it's way! 
> 
> Again I humbly thank the beta of my dreams, [Chandler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelHallow). I honestly don't understand how she manages to be right about everything, but it's delightfully annoying. Seriously though, she's always right. ALWAYS. 
> 
> As usual, I don't own Supernatural or any of it's characters. I'm just borrowing them for a time and I fully intend to return them in moderately good condition. (Well I say _moderately_...)

 ***

           The morning after the wine glass incident is a lazy one. Dean lies in bed for a good hour after he wakes up. Having a regular sort of sleeping pattern doesn’t always agree with his body. He’s gotten so used to catching three hours of rest here and there, running on empty, and downing whatever he can con off a pharmacist to keep him going. Sometimes Dean misses the rush of being on the run. That’s the way he’s lived the majority of his life. Sure, there was that year with Lisa and Ben – which he pointedly refuses to think about – but other than that he’s always been transient. He’s done what he’s had to do to survive. There’s no shame in that, but it does mean he’s got the occasional memory that he’d like to forget.

            There were years spent slicing through the haze of cannabis and wading in and out of drunken consciousness. There were addictions and vices that he’d vehemently deny ever having if questioned about. There were times when he’d been desperate – desperate for cash and for contact and for intimacy. These desperations would sometimes culminate in promiscuous transactions taking place behind run-down gas stations. They were dimly lit affairs. So many of them drug initiated escapades. Dean remembers skin and the stench of dirt. The grip of sweating twenties in his hand. The exact number of these kinds of exchanges he’s been a part of over the years escapes him. It’s enough to be significant. It’s enough that he used to go in for the odd HIV screening when he blew through a town with a decent hospital.  And he doesn’t know why he’s thinking about those experiences. They weren’t all exactly pleasant. Not to mention he hasn’t done something like that in… what, seven years? Nearly a decade. That’s enough time to change, Dean thinks. That’s enough time to warrant a shift in someone’s needs, someone’s interests, someone’s desires.

            He doubts his father ever knew. About any of it. If John did notice it, he ignored it. He preferred to maintain that his little soldier was the picture of masculinity and strength. And Dean tried. He tried so hard to live up to those standards. For years he trained himself to avoid anything deemed ‘sissy.’ He hid his comic books and his science fiction novels. He read them in secret, a deep guilt settling in his stomach. As if his need for an escape from his freak show of a life was weak or wrong. He’s shed so much of his father’s skin. Sloughed it off almost entirely in the dirt bath of purgatory. Yes, Dean supposes if his father could see him now… he would likely be eternally and indecently amused. Dean can almost hear it – the disappointment. The degradation.

            _“What the hell happened to you, boy?”_

_“You’ve gone soft, haven’t you? Can’t say I’m surprised. You never really had it in you. Always puffing up that chest of yours. Strutting around like some kinda goddamn hero.”_

_“See you’re running with all kinds these days. Blood suckers and demons, huh? Hope you know how to take it, son. They’re gonna fuck you over, soon as you turn your back.”_

_“But I forget you like that, don’t ya? You think I didn’t know? Oh I knew. I knew right from the start there was something wrong with you.  ”_

            Dean closes his eyes and does what he’s learned to do when the stench of his father’s whiskey breath floats in off a breeze from the past. He stops. He remembers. He remembers the soot and the perpetual overcast and the taste of iron on the wind. He remembers when he saw himself, really, for the first time and didn’t turn from the image in disgust. The simplicity of that time – purgatory. It _was_ a purge. He paid his dues. He stripped himself down to the basest form and it allowed him to rebuild from the ground up. Dean remembers that he is a newly made man – formed from the dust of monsters twice dead. He does not answer to a God or a father any longer. He answers to his own call.

            He hears the muffled sound of morning voices from outside his bedroom door. Sam and Crowley’s mumbles linger for a moment before fading down the hall. Dean supposes he’s done enough introspection for one day and moves to slip his Men of Letters robe over his pajamas. It comforts him. It’s his. He looks around his room. _Mine_ he thinks. _Just mine._ The nostalgia he’s been feeling for his life on the run disappears completely. There’s something to be said for putting down roots. Real roots. Not the easily removed roots of weeds and daisies, but the forever roots of oaks and pines.

            Dean makes his way from the bedroom hallway to the balcony, down the stairs, across the control room, through the library, and sidles into the kitchen around 9:15. By the time he’s made the impressive trek across their sprawling compound, he’s worked up quite an appetite. An obscenely hung-over Kevin sits slumped at the breakfast table, his head in his hands. Dean pulls ingredients from their bulbous 1950’s refrigerator and lifts various pans and utensils from the surrounding cabinets. He lets the doors to the cupboards slam shut.  There’s a groan from the table area. Dean smirks and cracks a few eggs into a bowl. He takes a very deep breath and begins to scream his every word.

            “GOOD MORNING THERE KEV!”

            “Guuuuuuuuuuuuuh.” Kevin moves his hands to cover his ears.

            “RISE AND SHINE TABLET BOY! ISN’T IT A GREAT DAY TO BE ALIVE?” Dean grins like the cat that got the cream.

            “No _,_ ” Kevin moans, his face smashed against the table top. “It’s _really_ not.”

            “OH NOW YOU’RE BEING A GRUMPY GUS. I KNOW JUST THE THING TO CHEER YOU UP!”

            “Kill me.”

            And then, in an act of unspeakable cruelty, Dean begins to sing.

            “ _ON A DARK DESERT HIGHWAY_ – COME ON! SING ALONG – _COOL WIND IN MY HAIR_ ”

            “Deeeeeeeeeaaaaaan.”

            “ _WARM SMELL OF COLITAS_ ”

            “Why do you **hate me**?”

            “ _RISING UP THROUGH THE AIR_ ”

            Dean croons off-key at the top of his lungs while whisking a large bowl of eggs. He lays out slices of bacon to fry, pours scramble into a separate pan, and starts to brew a pot of coffee all without skipping a single lyric or missing a beat. Dean thinks Kevin may have actually started crying. The irresistible aroma of freshly cooked bacon begins to fill the kitchen and filter into other parts of the bunker. Just as Dean is plating the food (and warbling that ‘ _we haven’t had that spirit here since 1969_ ’) Sam and Crowley enter the kitchen. Crowley seems utterly bemused at the singing hunter, but Sam catches on quickly and joins in as Dean reaches the second chorus.

            “ ** _WELCOME TO THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA!_** _”_

Kevin flips Sam the middle finger.

            “ _Such a lovely place,_ ” Dean sings.

            “ _Such a lovely place!_ ” Sam echoes.

            “ ** _SUCH A LOVELY FACE_** ,” they wail in unison. “ ** _THEY LIVIN’ IT UP AT THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA_**.”

            “FUCK YOU BOTH,” shouts Kevin, throwing his hands to the sky as if praying for God to put him out of his misery. It’s at this moment that Dean and Sam decide to take pity on the young prophet. Not to mention Sam has a coughing fit in the wake of his enthusiastic solo that temporarily preoccupies Dean. Crowley pats Kevin on the back as he makes his way to the dish cupboard and begins to set the table. After assuring himself that Sam is fine, Dean passes him the plate of bacon and points where to place it.

            “Eat as much bacon as you can stomach,” Sam says soothingly as he takes his seat next to Kevin. “The fat’ll soak up the alcohol. Trust me. Bacon got me through my first semester at Stanford.”

            Kevin responds to this advice by silently loading his plate with the greasy stuff.  By the time Dean joins the table, with a large pan of scrambled eggs, the bacon has been thoroughly picked over. Crowley practically attacks the scramble and Dean frowns.

            “Make sure to leave some for Cas…” and even as Dean says this he notes how strange the lack of the former angel’s presence is. Cas hasn’t been adjusting to sleep so well. As such, he’s normally the first person in the kitchen each morning and the last person to retire in the evening. But Dean hasn’t even seen him awake yet – puttering around the library, or tracing over the borders of countries with a single finger on the control room map. Cas puts up a good front. After the first week of inaction he began to religiously groom himself before joining their company. He showers each morning. He dresses neatly and immediately. Dean wonders if Cas even _owns_ pajamas. And if not, he wonders what exactly Cas _does_ sleep in – but he shuts down that train of thought pretty quickly.

 _What is wrong with me this morning?_ Dean wonders. _First the trip down memory lane and now…_

           But before Dean can complete this thought, Cas himself enters the kitchen. He’s slightly more disheveled than usual. The fallen angel is dressed of course – slightly too big thrift store jeans belted into place, the sleeves of a ratty plaid over-shirt rolled up to the elbows, and a grey v-neck thrown beneath the button-up… A grey v-neck that Dean thinks he recognizes… A grey v-neck that Dean is pretty sure he’s _worn_ before. Laundry is more difficult with five sets of clothes to sort through instead of just two. Mix-ups have been known to happen. So Dean isn’t sure why Cas wearing one of his shirts hits him in the gut. He’s equally unsure why the guy’s damp post-shower hair hits him in the same place. It sticks up in all directions. When Cas reaches up a hand to idly smooth the back of his neck, the borrowed t-shirt rides up a little. Dean glimpses a line of pale flesh above Cas’s beltline before snapping his head back to his plate.

           “Good Morning,” says Cas, crossing the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee.

           Dean mumbles a reply and shoves a forkful of eggs into his mouth. Eventually Cas settles in the chair beside him and scrapes the last of the available food onto his plate. They all eat in silence. It’s not like any of them have much to report. Crowley’s the only one who’s seen the outside world in a fortnight and they get all of their serious intel from Garth. There are requests to pass the pepper or the salt. Dean catches Sam giving Crowley a meaningful look when Cas offers to refresh Dean’s coffee. And of course Crowley would have gone and told Sam all about their little tiff. Of course those two would assume there was some sort of lingering tension between he and Cas. Ridiculous. Dean smiles when Cas returns with his full mug and thanks him. No tension there. Still, Sam continues to watch them throughout the meal.

           When Kevin seems unable to stomach any more food, he slides his plate away and resumes using the table as a makeshift pillow. This essentially signals the end of the meal and one by one they all take their empty dishes to the sink. Crowley acts as if he’s going to start washing the dirty plates and Dean is about to pry the dishrag from his grubby little hands when a loud series of bangs sound from the control room. Everyone in the kitchen stops moving. They wait. Kevin raises his head from the table. They hear it again.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

           It’s coming from the front door atop the balcony. Someone is _knocking on their door._ Dean jumps into action. He springs toward the fridge and reaches to slide his hand along the top. He finds the hidden pistol there and cocks it as he sprints through the library, into the control room, and up the staircase. As he approaches the door, he looks down at the room below him. Sam lifts a shotgun from where it’s been leaning against the wall and nods as if to say “I gotcha.” Cas stands next to Sam completely weaponless and Dean wants to scream for him to get back into the kitchen. He doesn’t. A fear settles in Dean’s stomach. It’s a fear he’s well accustomed to. This could be it for the bunker – for his home. He’s never been allowed creature comforts before. Why did he foolishly think this time would be any different?

           He reaches slowly for the door handle with his left hand and grips the gun tight in his right. He pulls it open in one fluid motion and unflinchingly trains his pistol on their visitor. To his surprise, Charlie Bradbury stands before him also brandishing a gun. Well, if you can call it one.

           “Christ, Charlie! You scared the shit out of us.” Sam lowers his shotgun.

           “What is _that?_ ” Dean asks of what might just be the smallest revolver he’s ever seen.

           “This,” Charlie answers without hesitation, “is a Ruger LCR and it’s awesome and why in the _hell_ have you and Sam not been answering my texts?”

           “What texts?” asks Sam, immediately reaching into his pocket to fish out his phone.

           “Oh, I don’t know,” Charlie says, rolling her eyes, “Just the bajillion texts I sent you after people started _falling from the sky_!?!”

           “Oh…”

           Charlie looks tired, as if she hasn’t slept in a couple of days. She slowly lowers her gun and Dean does the same. He makes a mental note to put it back in its hiding place as soon as possible. The top of the fridge trick is something that became a habit when he was still living with Lisa. It was a discreet place that almost no one thought to check. It also kept Ben from toying around with a gun when Dean wasn’t looking. Charlie stows her piece in her large and button covered shoulder bag. She then flings it at Dean and makes her way downstairs. He catches it, tosses it into one of the balcony chairs, and tucks his gun into the pocket of his robe. They’ll have to fix her up a room if she intends to stay, but her presence will definitely crowd things. When Dean reaches the bottom of the balcony stairs and steps into the control room, Charlie is laying into Sam. It’s actually kind of hilarious how genuinely terrified the giant younger brother appears in the face of little Charlie Bradbury.

           “What do you mean you can’t find my texts? Look!” She pulls out her own phone and taps the screen a few times. “Right there! Dozens! I’ve been trying you for weeks. I’ve been calling too, but I could never get through.”

           Sam looks honestly bewildered. He takes the phone from her hands and scrolls through the conversation feed. Then Charlie rounds on Dean.

           “And _you!—”_

           “Hey! I lost my phone God knows where. I had to get a new one—”

           “Oh, I _know_ , Dean. I track your cellphones, remember? And I watched Sam’s little dot get further and further away from your little dot. And Sam wasn’t answering me and your stupid little dot was just fucking _sitting there!_ And I drove up to South fucking Dakota to try and find your dot and – and – and I thought – Jesus! I thought –” Charlie is trying very hard to avoid crying. She is trying to be a hard ass. She is trying to reprimand Sam and Dean for being the inconsiderate human beings they sometimes are. But Dean sees straight through the routine. He sees through it because he’s given the same kinds of speeches to Sam more times than he can count and they’re always about one thing and one alone: fear.

           So while Charlie yells and her eyes get misty, Dean does the one thing he knows to do. He walks forward and gives her the biggest hug he can. It’s not something he would do with most people, but then again, Charlie _isn’t_ most people. She’s someone he can just hug, no questions asked. He wraps his arms around her and she responds in earnest. If she sheds a few tears into his shoulder, he pretends not to notice.

           “I’m sorry – hey, I really am.”

           “I hate you,” she mumbles into the fabric of his robe.

            Dean looks up for a moment over her head. Sam’s still scrolling through his and Charlie’s phones with a puzzled expression, but Cas stares straight back at Dean. He tilts his head sideways in a familiar manner. There’s something strange about his expression though. It’s a mixture of surprise and something else Dean can’t quite place. He supposes Cas has always been a little confused by public displays of affection. He dismisses it as Charlie pulls out of their hug and hits him on the chest a couple of times.

           “Don’t – you – ever – do that – to me – again!”

           “Ow! Fine! Fine – we’ll get a third phone or something. A back up,” Dean says. “Or, hell, we’ll just give you Cas’s number.”

           “Cas?” Charlie is suddenly extremely alert. “Cas is here?”

           “Uh,” Dean says, taken aback by Charlie’s slightly manic new expression, “Yeah. Charlie, meet Cas. Cas, Charlie.” He points behind her and she whirls around like a dreidel.

           Cas looks very nervous.

           “You’re Cas? As in Castiel? As in Angel of The Lord, Castiel?” Charlie takes very slow and measured steps toward Cas who starts to speak.

           “I am no longer an Angel of The Lord, but yes. My name is Cast—”

           “Oh. My. God. Oh my _God!_ ” squeals Charlie as she practically launches herself forward. She clenches her arms around Cas in a constricting embrace. His own arms are pinned against his sides and he looks completely thrown.

           “What the hell?” Sam laughs and inches away from both Charlie and Cas.

           “Charlie?” Dean says with concern, “Why are you molesting our angel?”

           “Not molesting. Aggressively loving.”

           “Okay, why are you _aggressively loving_ our angel?”

           “Because he’s just how I imagined he’d be.”

           And it all rushes back to Dean – the books. Of course. Charlie’s read them. She knows all about Cas. She knows about everything right up until the apocalypse and she’s got an obsessive personality. It was only a matter of time before her fanaticism caught up with them. And Cas is absolutely the kind of character she’d latch onto, isn’t he? Dean has a feeling it’s gonna be an interesting few days. Eventually, Charlie loosens her grip on a wide-eyed Cas and manages to compose herself. She clears her throat.

           “Sorry. I just. I’m a big fan.” She smiles.

           “That’s okay,” says Cas, smoothing out the front of his shirt.

            “She’s right though,” pipes Crowley from the doorway of the library, “Edlund did a particularly excellent job detailing Castiel’s features. I was less than pleased with his assessment of me, but he got Cas spot on.” He steps down into the control room and Kevin follows behind him.

            “And who are you?” Charlie asks with uncontained curiosity.

            “Crowley – former king of Hell, ex-crossroads demon, and resident wine expert.” He extends his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

            Charlie freezes. She looks quickly between Dean and Sam as if they must be crazy and eyes the shot gun across the room. Sam steps in.

            “It’s okay, Charlie. He’s… uh… well. He’s cured.”

            “Cured? You can cure demons now?”

            “Apparently,” shrugs Sam. Charlie still looks wary, but shakes Crowley’s hand anyway.

            “Always nice to meet a fan.” He smiles and winks at her.

            “And I’m Kevin. Kevin Tran. Prophet, actually – I’m a prophet.” Kevin steps directly in front of Crowley to grab Charlie’s hand with an anxious smile. He winces a little as he speaks, the hangover still working its magic. There’s a moment of awkward silence. The kid looks at her like he’s never seen a woman before. To be fair, he hasn’t exactly been in the presence of a woman who wasn’t his mother in a considerable amount of time. There’s no harm in having a little crush, Dean thinks. It’s not as if he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell with her anyway.

            “Nice to meet you Kevin,” says Charlie, turning to Dean with a painfully neutral expression. There’s another lull in the conversation. “Well. This is just a party!”

            Kevin laughs a little too hard.

            “Can’t let it get too crazy. Cas’ll break out the Twister board. Haha! Ha.” The silence continues and everyone stares at Dean. “Ahem – Ah – Isn’t that right Cas?”

            Cas says nothing. However, the comment seems to remind Charlie of her preoccupation with the man, and she turns to him. Something about what she sees makes her furrow her brow.

            “Speaking of Cas, where’s the trench coat?”

            “What?” Dean can’t believe he’s actually just heard that come out of her mouth.

            “The trench coat! It’s what he’s known for… in some circles. That and the backwards tie.” Charlie starts to circle Cas like a cat does a wounded bird. She’s studying him. Waiting. Scheming. “Seriously, you’ve gone and _Winchesterfied him!_ ”

            “Dean and Sam have informed me that it’s not necessary to wear a long coat indoors,” Cas says, a little forlorn.

            “Oh, come on!” says Sam. “We weren’t being malicious. You’d overheat in that thing!”

            “Winchesterfied? That’s _perfect!_ ” Kevin laughs.

            “Yeah and it looks like they got you too,” says Charlie.

            Kevin glances downward at his own layered ensemble and concedes with a tilt of his head and a shrug of his shoulders.

            “Oh my God, you guys should let me take Cas shopping! Can I?” Charlie grips Cas’s sleeve like a two-year-old and hops up and down. “Can I? Can I please?!?”

            “Wait a minute.” Sam pauses and thoughtfully appraises Charlie. “How do you even know Cas used to wear a trench coat?”

            “What?” says Charlie a little too quickly. She drops Cas’s sleeve. “Um, uh, the books, remember?”

            “Yeah, yeah,” says Sam. “But Chuck stopped printing after Dean… well…” He looks at Dean apologetically. Dean dismisses it with a wave of his hand. Sam continues.

            “We didn’t meet Cas until he pulled Dean –“

            “ _Gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition?_ ” Charlie says this all in one breath. Dean actually gasps.

            “Charlie!” Dean’s never told anyone what Cas first said to him. It always seemed a little weird. A little private. He’s overreacting, he knows it, but it still doesn’t feel like the kind of sentiment you just throw out casually. Dean doesn’t always acknowledge it, but he’s unfailingly grateful for all that Cas has done for him. Cas didn’t just save him from the cage. Cas saved him from himself. He shudders to think what he would have become had he stayed in that godforsaken place.  Charlie grimaces and looks regretful.

            “Sorry. I just really like that line.”

            “That’s not a line! That’s my life!”

            “That’s not important right now,” says Sam. “Charlie, how did you read past Dean going to hell? I thought that’s where the series ended.”

            Charlie looks at her feet and starts to pick at one of her fingernails.

            “Well, that’s where the series _used_ to end.”

            “What, did Chuck keep publishing? We threatened to murder him, you know.” Sam crosses his arms and raises a single eyebrow in what looks to be the beginning of mega bitch face.

            “Well, no. He kept writing but he – Edlund didn’t keep publishing. Not _exactly_.”

            “ _Charlie,_ ” Dean growls

            “I may have… recently assisted him in finishing his untold story.” Charlie shuts her eyes as if waiting for death to descend.

            “Our story! Not his story! _Our story!_ ” Dean cries.

            “ _You_ published the rest of the novels?” asks Sam incredulously.

           “… Maybe?!”

           “Charlie!”

           “Okay! So I did! Just online though!”

           Sam and Dean glare at her.

           “It’s not my fault!” she shouts. “You should have seen the fandom!”

           “The what?”

           “The fans!” Charlie throws her hands up and begins to pace. “They’d been waiting so patiently for so long. They never gave up hope on getting a resolution to the series. You should’ve seen the forums. They even petitioned the publishers to release more of the books, but the publishers didn’t have anymore. Carver Edlund never sent them the manuscripts he’d promised. So I did a little digging… figured out his real name… gave myself access to his online backup service—”

           “You mean you hacked it.” Sam glowers.

           “Hacked, shmacked. I did what I had to do.”

           “But you didn’t have to do anything!” Says Dean heatedly, still wondering how anyone could find their pain and misery so fucking entertaining. Crowley leans back against one of their wall instruments and tries not to smile. He is unsuccessful in this endeavor.

           “I sure as shit did!” Charlie whines. “Those poor devoted fans were left with Dean in hell for eternity! That’s just awful! It was like _Firefly_ all over again—”

           “Those were dark times,” says Kevin.

           “Exactly! I felt bad. Every fandom deserves its _Serenity_.”

           “I swear it’s like they speak a different language,” says Dean. Cas nods.

           “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know it was such a sore subject. I didn’t even know you guys were aware of it to be honest. I was kind of holding out hope that I was secretly an original character in some sort of really accurate alternate universe Supernatural fanfiction.” Charlie huffs and blows at her bangs.

           Dean just blinks at her.

           “I literally have no clue what that means.”

           “I’m _sorry_. Please don’t hate me.” Charlie looks up through her eyelashes and bats them in what Dean considers a fairly accurate impersonation of a Disney princess. Not that he’s ever seen a Disney princess film… more than once… maybe twice… 

           “We don’t hate you,” says Sam with a sigh.

           Charlie looks to Dean.

           “Christ, I don’t hate you.”

           “Good!” Charlie grins toothily and hops back toward Cas. “Now let’s see about getting you a new wardrobe.”

           “Not sure that’s such a good idea, Charlie.” As much as Dean wants a day out of the bunker, they _have_ been hiding for a reason. The angels aren’t showing any signs of slowing their roll.

           “Why not?” She starts to fiddle with Cas’s collar. She makes a twirling motion with her finger. When Cas doesn’t understand what this means, Charlie grabs him by the shoulders and turns him herself. She pulls at the tag on his t-shirt to check it. Kevin watches on with what can only be described as pure envy. Dean coughs and rubs at his neck.

           “Well, like you said, people have been falling from the sky lately – angels, to be exact – and those angels are kind of angry about, you know, getting chucked outta the heavenly gates.”

           “And this anger applies to Cas, how?” She rolls the back of Cas’s jeans down to check that tag too. Cas squirms and answers her query.

           “I played a key role in the shutting of heaven. It was the loss of my angelic nature that cemented the fall. My siblings consider me responsible.”

           Charlie stops trying to measure Cas’s waist with her hands. They can all hear the poorly concealed anguish in his gravelly tones. Dean forgets sometimes that the angels are actually Cas’s family. It’s not really fair of him to forget, but he does. As much as Cas is mourning the loss of his grace, he’s also mourning the loss of something far greater. It’s hard to understand the scale of such a loss. Dean imagines Cas in his old suit – a black tie done the wrong way around instead of a blue one – leaning over some sort of immense grave. Flowers in hand, he places them on the mass of winged bodies. It’s a funeral every day for Cas in some respects. Dean’s had those days. He remembers them well.

           Charlie breaks the tension in the room. There seems to have been a lot of that today, despite Dean’s best efforts.

           “Well,” she says, “I think we can risk one teensy little trip topside for something as vital as this.”

           “Oh yeah? And what’s so vital about a shopping spree?”

           Charlie looks overly affronted.

           “Fashion is identity, Dean! Cas is human now, right?” She glances up at Cas. He nods. “Yes. And that means he has the right to personal expression – Clothing, being a major element in the exhibition of one’s inner self.”

           “Impressive argument,” interjects Kevin.

           “Thank you!”

           “Closing statements?”

           Charlie smiles at Kevin. Dean fears the kid might faint in his weakened state.

            “In short, you’ve taken my beloved trench-coated angel baby away from me and that simply won’t do.” As Charlie says this she laces her left arm through Cas’s right and locks their elbows together.

           “I am no longer an angel… nor am I in any way your child”

           “That’s my Cas. Now come _on_ , Dean!” Charlie pleads before turning to address the man on her arm. “Or do you wanna wear plaid flannel shirts for the rest of your life?”

           Cas makes a face like he’s actually considering this suggestion and is utterly horrified by the very possibility.

           “I _would_ like to purchase a pair of pants that fit properly.”

           “That’s the spirit! What do you say, can I keep him?” Charlie pouts her lips and turns back toward Dean. He glances around for any kind of support. Sam just smirks away, Kevin looks like he’d follow Charlie to the ends of the earth at this point, and Crowley seems to have disappeared – likely, to busy himself with more chores. Dean heaves a large sigh.

           “Pleeeeeeeeeeeease, Dean? You know how I love a good dressing room montage.”

           There’s a pregnant pause.

           “ _Fine_ ,” says Dean and Charlie jumps up and down again. “But I’m coming with, in case we run into trouble. I’m not sure I trust you with that pea shooter.”

           “Done, now let’s _go_ already!”

           “Hold up!” Dean extends a hand to try and quell Charlie’s excitement. “I gotta make a few calls – make sure the tabs we got on the angels place ‘em the hell away from here – and take a shower. And _then_ we can go.”

           “Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, Dean!”

           “C-Could I come too?” Kevin is absolutely dripping with desperation and blatantly eyeballing Charlie.

           Sam and Dean share a look.

           “You got this one?” Dean asks.

           “I got this one,” Sam says.

           “Got what?” asks Kevin.

           “Ahhh, let’s go talk in the library for a second, Kevin.” Sam raises his eyebrows at Dean and then ushers their young prophetic protégé into the other room.

            Charlie is speaking with Cas in a newly serious manner about his preferences in fabric and color. Dean and he share a momentary connection. They don’t say anything. They just lock eyes and Cas smiles slightly with the side of his mouth. Dean smiles back and nods. Cas needs this. Dean gets it. Only this morning he was admiring his own identifiers – the Led Zeppelin album on his bureau, the guns racked on the walls, the pictures he’s finally rescued from the depths of his wallet sitting in frames around his very own room. He’s lived a life devoid of ownership before. He’s hid beneath the shadows of others and neglected his own desires. He doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Cas.

            Dean turns to head up the staircase, but for the second time that morning he’s stopped dead in his tracks by an obscenely loud noise. This time, he’s frozen with laughter instead of fear as Kevin’s frustrated cry reverberates through the large open rooms of the bunker.

            “ _GODDAMMIT!”_

            Sam’s broken the news to him.

           The kid really can’t catch a break.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. [DISCLAIMER] I know nothing about guns. I know I live in Texas. I feel like I should have some sort of inherent knowledge of firearms, but I don't. 
> 
> All I knew was that I wanted Charlie's gun to be funnily small and the [Ruger LCR](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruger_LCR) seemed like a decent model. Or at least according to Google. If my use of the gun is grossly inaccurate, I suppose you could let me know. But really you should take it up with Google. 
> 
> And that's my official stance on the matter. 
> 
> GUH. _GUNS!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE IT IS. THE THIRD CHAPTER. FINALLY. 
> 
> First and foremost I owe you readers a very serious apology. This took me far too long to get up and, while I have many excuses, they all basically boil down to the fact that sometimes writing is just freaking hard and life gets in the way. This also may seem like a short chapter, which it is. It was originally intended to be about twice as long, but my Beta suggested I split it up. So, do not fear! I have Chapter Four ready and waiting in the wings. I have to make some final edits and then I'll upload it a week from today. That'll give me some time to really crack down on finishing Chapter Five and hopefully y'all will never have to wait this long for a new installment again. 
> 
> I also apologize, perhaps unnecessarily, that this chapter is fluff-city. I promise this thing has a plot! That I have in fact outlined! And that has all the elements of a plot! It is plot-tastic!
> 
> Moving right along, I must again thank my flawless Beta and friend, [Chandler,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelHallow) for all her help and hard work in making this thing way less shitty. She puts up with all of my crazy and my insistence on trying to make Dean Winchester sing things at every possible opportunity. 
> 
> Once more, I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters I've decided to take for a spin in this work. Which sounds dirty. It's not. I promise.

***

 

           The town of Lebanon, Kansas boasts a population just under 300. Most of these people are longtime small-towners. They live and die in their isolated communities. They take in the fresh country air each morning and tend to their rural gardens with a sense of ancient and unusual pride. Technology has been slowly seeping into the pores of small town America, but not in Lebanon. These people do not feel the draw of modern comforts. Cell phones are for business men, computers for programmers. It is a fascinatingly old community. People still drive to their neighbors’s homes to borrow cups of sugar and invite each other over to Sunday dinner. The idea of the church potluck is alive and well here. God is carved into the bones of every hardworking farmer and he drips from their brows as they labor in the warm Kansas sunshine. They do American work, with American values, in the name of The American Dream. Even when that dream breaks down. Even when it disintegrates entirely like topsoil in a dust storm. They cannot be moved. Lebanon is a town of survivors.

           It’s why the Winchesters fit so well amongst the sloping hills.

           It’s why The Men of Letters chose to erect their home base in the middle of such an antiquated world. They recognized the timelessness of the people and their lives. They knew this tradition would carry on and their secrets would forever remain hidden behind hospitality and faultless courtesy. They knew they had nothing to fret in little God-fearing Lebanon.

           The downside to such a place is the same as its upside: There is no convenience, nor modernity. The nearest decently sized shops are a good thirty minutes west in the marginally larger borough of Smith Center. Most necessities are regularly stocked at The Lebanon General Store, but occasions like Charlie’s intended shopping spree require a bit of trip. It’s not as if Smith Center offers too much more of a selection, but it’s a considerably better spread than The Thrift ‘N Save puts forth. So, they make the drive – Charlie and Dean and Cas.

           It’s a bumpy one, all dirt lane roads, but Charlie doesn’t seem to mind. She sits in the back of The Impala at the edge of the vinyl seat cushion, her safety belt a discarded luxury. She talks nonstop and Cas proves to be an excellent listener. Dean isn’t quite so patient and pops in a Journey tape after the first five minutes of one-sided chatter. The speakers, which are still in pretty good condition given all they’ve been through, spit out the thumping rock beat of _Any Way You Want It._ And even though the music pulses throughout the car with an impressive intensity, Charlie isn’t discouraged. She either misses or ignores Dean’s hint and only endeavors to speak louder over each drum solo and guitar riff.

           It’s not even an interesting drive to Smith Center. There’s nothing to look at, Kansas having a distinct lack of impressive scenery or interesting geographical phenomena. They follow a single road all the way west until they hit civilization. It’s a straight shot and a fairly short one.

           They make good time. It only _seems_ to take forever.

           Dean pulls up in front of one of two clothing stores in town and lets Charlie and Cas get out before he goes to find a parking spot. He parks quickly in an effort to guarantee he doesn’t miss the opening act of what’s sure to be a show worth watching. Knowing Cas and Charlie, they’ll all get kicked out in no time for generally unacceptable behavior. The whole outing vaguely reminds him of that ridiculous incident at the brothel – Cas looking all terrified and debauched, a half-naked prostitute screaming at him to get the hell out of her sight. Dean shakes his head and chuckles under his breath as he rounds the outside corner of the consignment store.

           When he pushes past the front door and into the shop, a wall of cold air meets him. The AC is cranked to the max and a little chill runs down his spine as he surveys the place. The clothing is hung on different sized racks all around the store and there appears little method to the madness. Some racks tower over others. Some are organized by color, others by style, and some by no discernible characteristic at all. The single cashier, an older woman with a beehive, glares at Dean from over the pages of her periodical. Dean spots the top of Cas’s head by the far back wall and moves in that direction. When he finds his way through the mess of the store, he sees that Charlie’s got a couple of different shirts by the hangers. She holds them up one at a time in front of Cas’s chest.

           “I don’t know, what do you think?” she asks Dean when he approaches.

           Dean takes a look at the options. They’re both henleys and almost identical beyond their color. One is a purple, the other a deep and royal blue.

           “The blue,” says Dean. “Definitely.” He says it without thinking.

           Charlie considers the choice. “You’re right,” she sighs. “The color totally brings out his eyes. Here, Dean, hold this.” And Charlie thrusts the shirt into his hands. Dean is about to protest that he is not a pack mule when he catches the unobstructed sight of Cas.

           The man looks beyond bashful beneath the mound of garments he’s already piled high with.  Dean wonders how Charlie’s managed to pick out so much merchandise in such a short period of time (he couldn’t have been gone more than ten minutes) but he doesn’t ask her. He knows when to step aside in the face of a master. She zips around the store, pulling out pair after pair of jeans, button ups, t-shirts, undershirts, jackets, and the occasional tie. She pauses just long enough to ask for their opinion on a striped v-neck or set of khakis before flitting back into the dense forest of huddled racks. Dean can barely keep track of it all. The stack in his arms grows almost as unmanageable as Cas’s. Eventually Charlie stops her mad dash to review the fruits of her labor.

           “Alright,” she says with gusto. “I think we’re ready to try on!”

           Cas peaks out from behind his pile and appears terrified by the prospect.

           “All of them?” he asks, swallowing hard.

           Charlie laughs and sets a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll pick out an outfit. You’ll try it on. Simple.”

           Cas still looks uncertain.

           “It’ll go quickly, I promise,” says Charlie with finality.

           “Liar, liar…” Dean mumbles as he and Cas follow her to the fitting rooms.

           Dean tosses the clothes he’s been holding over the left arm of a couch just outside a row of curtained changing stalls. Charlie’s already picking through the pile as she mutters under her breath. Her thin fingers make quick work of things and she soon sends Cas off with an outfit and a flick of her wrist. Cas does as he’s told. However reluctantly.

           When Charlie turns back to look at Dean he’s staring at her rather incredulously.

           “What?” she asks.

           Dean shakes his head. “You best watch Cas like a hawk. He might try to sneak out the window while you’re not looking.”

           “Oh, shut it!” she says, blushing a little. “I like playing dress up, so sue me!” She settles on the vacant arm of the couch and tucks her feet up on the cushion before continuing. “It’s like having a real live Barbie doll—”

           “ _Barbie?_ ”

           “Well, Ken doll I suppose, if you wanna get technical—”

           “ _Really?_ _Barbie?_ ” asks Dean, one eyebrow raised. “Wow, yeah. Never pegged you as a Barbie girl… Heh, Barbie Girl—”

           “Listen. You don’t even know. It doesn’t matter what you’re into. If you’re born with a vagina in this country, somebody at some point is buying you a frakkin’ Barbie doll. It’s easier to just embrace the uber-femme tradition. If we’re being fair though, I did get pretty creative with my Barbies. I’d always have them dare one another to make out.” Charlie stares into the distance as she reminisces. “That probably should have been everybody’s first clue.”

           “Goddammit! Now I’m gonna have that song stuck in my head.”

           “What song?”

           “The song… The ‘Barbie Girl’ song.”

           “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

           “The – the song... You know the song! The – the –” Dean realizes he’s on the verge of humming a few bars and stops himself. “I’m not gonna sing it! It’s bad enough I even know it!”

           “Damn!” Charlie grins. “I was really hoping I could get video of that happening.”

           “You wouldn’t dare.” Dean narrows his eyes.

            “Oh, I would, Winchester.” Charlie slides the iPhone from her pocket and gestures with it menacingly. “And I know people. I can make that kinda shit go viral in no time flat.”

           Dean opens his mouth to retort, but is cut off by Cas emerging from the changing room. He steps out in a red cardigan and a pair of what must be uncomfortably _tight_ jeans – the legs seem almost saran-wrapped to his calves. He sloppily adjusts a skinny tie around the collar of a white button-up.

           “Not bad!” says Charlie as she hops off the couch.

           Dean says nothing.

           “Are these pants supposed to feel like they’re cutting off the circulation to my feet?”

           “Uhh, kind of, actually. It’s just a style. We can try something else.” Charlie adjusts Cas’s tie and straightens his sweater.

           “I don’t know about the cardigan but this shirt fits you perfectly. How’s it feel?”

           “Good,” says Cas. “Familiar.” He smiles a little.

           “Good! The tie’s nice too. Very mod. What do you think, Dean?”

           Dean’s caught off guard. He panics and grunts non-committedly. Charlie doesn’t seem to notice and sorts through the piles again for another outfit. Cas walks back into the dressing room and throws Dean a weird sort of look before sliding the curtain shut. Dean clenches his fist against his knee and remains silent.

           Charlie passes Cas his next ensemble under the curtain of the stall and returns to her perch on the couch. Dean notices she’s lined up a couple of other outfits and hung them on an empty rack next to the chair.

           “So! ...How are you guys… uh, doing?” Charlie asks with a furtive look in her eyes.

           “What?” Dean’s mind is elsewhere. “Us? Sam and the boys and I? We’re uh, well. We’re alright.”

            “Good! How’s…” She goes silent for a moment and then seems to make up her mind about something. “Okay, what the hell’s with Crowley?”

           “Oh,” says Dean.

           “I mean,”—Charlie shifts closer to Dean—“You don’t actually trust him… do you? Cured or not, he’s still Crowley!”

           Dean glances around the store, his eyes lingering a little on Cas’s dressing room.

           “No. We don’t. Well, Sam seems to a little. I’m not so sure.”

           “Okay, thank _God!_ I thought I was gonna have to smack some sense into you morons.” Charlie seems relieved. Her shoulders relax and she sits back a little.

           Dean explains quickly about the third trial, the botched cure, and how they couldn’t be sure it would manifest a permanent change in Crowley’s demeanor. They decided, rather hastily given the circumstances, that keeping the demon with them was the best course of action. Then, after a while, when it seemed that Crowley’s contrition wasn’t completely fleeting, they let out a little slack on the leash.

           “Wait, so you’ve just been letting him leave the bunker unsupervised?”

           “Don’t be stupid. We’re tracking him.” Dean picks at a loose thread in a seam of his jeans. Maybe he should do a little shopping for himself while they’re there.

           “How? How are you tracking him?”

           “Cell phone. You of all people should be familiar with that particular technique.” Dean gives Charlie a look.

           “Yeah, but it’s a pretty inaccurate method of keeping tabs on someone. That much I’m _very_ familiar with.”

           The curtain of the dressing stall slides open. Dean tenses immediately, but Cas has thankfully shed the skintight jeans of before for a more practical pair. He also wears a hoodie layered beneath a leather jacket and Charlie is beside herself. She slides off the couch again to circle around him, making adjustments here and there and tugging at the clothes. While she prattles on about ‘fit’ and ‘style,’ Dean allows his thoughts to wander. Charlie’s right – about the tracking being unreliable. Crowley could easily stash his phone around Lebanon before jetting off to someplace shadier.

           Charlie sends Cas back into the dressing room with a new set of hangers and returns to her seat. She immediately picks up her and Dean’s conversation. 

           “I just think you guys should be a little more careful with Mr. Tea-and-Crumpets.”

           “Well, if you’ve got any suggestions, please, feel free to share with the class.” Dean grumbles. He begins to tap out the guitar part of a Foreigner song on his knee. His fingers move in time with the music in his head and the action relieves some of his frustration. He’s not sure how much more of this fashion show he can take.

           “You could at least let me help you rig up a decent car tracker,” says Charlie. She stares at Dean’s jittery fingers for a moment and flashes a quick smirk before burying it under a look of genuine concern.

           “Oh yeah?”

           “Definitely,” she says. “They’re not very difficult to hand-make if you’ve got the right materials.”

           “What do you need?”

           “A decent and durable cellphone – or really any device with GPS capabilities, basic understanding of how a car battery works, and internet access.”

           “Sounds like a plan, MacGyver.”

           Charlie snorts and puts a hand over her face.

           “What?!” asks Dean, frowning.

           “MacGyver? Seriously? We have _got_ to update your knowledge of pop culture. The eighties references are getting painful, Dean. _Painful._ ”

           “Hey! MacGyver is a classic!”

           “In what universe?”

           The two spend the next hour or so arguing about the merits of different television programming. Cas interrupts every couple of minutes or so by appearing in a new set of clothes. Charlie makes comments on his appearance, asks how he feels in whatever garb she’s shoved him into, and eventually ushers him back into his stall. Despite the repetitive nature of this proccess, It’s not as excruciatingly boring as it could be and it _is_ nice to see Charlie again. It’s kind of relieving to have a conversation with someone “normal” for a change. Someone who’d rather chat about the latest Star Trek Movie (which Dean has to admit to Charlie he hasn’t seen yet) than what kind of mega-spell could kick an entire race out of their homeland. See, lately certain pieces of Dean have been stumbling out of their carefully guarded caves and prodding him sharply, as if they’ve finally had enough of being ignored. He’s realizing, slowly, that happiness is not something that just happens to you when the storm blows over. It doesn’t fall from the sky and land in your lap and suddenly solve all your problems for you. Happiness is something you have to take when you can get it – storm be damned.  

            Charlie’s lecturing Dean on the benefits of Joss Whedon when Cas materializes in what Charlie assures him (for the third time) is the last thing he’ll have to try on. Dean is again mad speechless by what adorns Cas’s body. This time, however, it’s for a very different reason.

            “Oh my god. Oh my _god!_ Is that authentic?” Dean jumps up to get a closer look. Charlie grins.

            “I thought you might like this one,” she chuckles.

            The shirt that Cas wears beneath a stylish tweed blazer, and that Dean begins to inspect, is a Zeppelin tour t-shirt from Knebworth Park, 1979. It features The Swan Man – his countenance much like an angel’s, his feathered wings spread wide. He appears to fall from the black and starry heavens. Dean grabs at the bottom of the shirt and pulls it outward to get a better look at the design. Cas seems completely bewildered by the action and turns a little red as Dean exposes the top of his beltline and a portion of his lower abdomen.

            “I don’t understand.” Cas turns to look at Charlie for some sort of explanation. She laughs at his mildly frightened expression.

            “It’s kind of a rare shirt,” she offers.

            “How – _how_ ,” Dean stutters, “is this even here? In a thrift store? In East Jesus, Nowhere?!”

            “Awesome find, right?” Charlie is beyond smug. “I’m pretty sure it’s not a replica either. It certainly feels old enough.”

            “Awesome doesn’t even _begin_ to cover it. You’re getting this shirt Cas. You’re getting it and then I’m going to steal it.” He finally looks up from the t-shirt design and realizes how close he and Cas are. Also, that he’s practically pulling the shirt up and over his friend’s chest. He drops the hem he’s been clutching and takes a little step back – pretending to cough into his fist as he does.

            “You can have it, Dean. If you like.” Cas seems entirely sincere.

            “Really?” Dean’s face lights up even more than it already has. He’s not even trying to hide his enthusiasm and he looks ten years younger for it.

            “Of course,” shrugs Cas. “If it’s rare, as you say, whoever wears it should… appreciate it.  I’m afraid I don’t quite qualify in that aspect.” He glances down at his front and smiles a sad little smile.

            “Thanks, Cas! That’s… Just – Thanks.”

            There’s a short, slightly awkward pause.

            “Well!” Charlie interjects, hopping up from the couch. “I think that just about does it. Cas, you can go put your regular clothes on again and Dean and I can start taking this stuff up to the front.”

            “Oh, yeah, by the way – who’s paying for all this?” Dean asks, gesturing to the not insignificant ‘buy’ pile.

            “Keep your shirt on – not you Cas. You go take yours off – This is on me.”

            “On you?” Dean looks skeptical.

            “I mean… _technically_ it’s on a Mr. Elliot James Connelly.”

            “Yeah? And who’s he?”

            “Just your average, run-of-the-mill billionare CEO whose bank security is insultingly shitty. One of many, unfortunately. Well, I say _unfortunately_ …”

            “Wait… are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

            Cas has retreated to his curtained stall and Charlie just smirks, scooping up half of the “buy” pile and leaving the rest for Dean.

            “So you just steal from the richest, most powerful men in the world on a daily basis?” Dean grabs the remaining clothes and follows Charlie toward the front of the store. When they toss the jumbled mass of hangers onto the countertop, the cashier slaps her magazine down with unnecessary force and glares at them through narrowed eyes.

            “Not on a daily basis just… sometimes. When business is slow.” Charlie smiles politely at the old woman and watches her untangle the hangers. “Mostly I hack on contract. I point out the flaws in a customer’s system by exploiting them and they shell out for the service.”

            Dean nods his head and considers asking Charlie whether or not she’d be willing to throw some of that 1-percenter cash his way, but she keeps talking – barreling through her words.

            “I wanted to ask you real quick” – She side-eyes the back of the store – “Is Cas okay? I mean, obviously he’s probably not _okay_ -okay, but is he adjusting to it? The – the human thing?”

            Dean realizes she’s been working up to asking this question all morning. He reads the heartbreak on her face like map. She’d reacted quickly in order to lighten the mood when Cas had dropped the angel bomb earlier, but she hadn’t ignored it. She’d been processing, thinking, formulating a plan of action. That’s what Charlie does. But Dean’s never seen her this unsure before, this _stumped_. Not even facing Leviathan. Not even confronting unknown evil whilst dressed in a tunic. Charlie is entirely and unequivocally worried.

            The worst part is Dean really doesn’t know what to tell her. He clears his throat. The woman’s almost through ringing up the clothes. Cas is probably on his way to the front of the store by now. He feels pressured. Does he spare Charlie further anxiety over the matter or does he tell it to her straight? Does he protect or does he confide? He’s hit this wall so many times before. With Sammy and Bobby and Cas and Lisa and even John. For the first time, he chooses neither option. He aims somewhere in the middle and hopes it’s worth the shot.

            “It’s rough,” he concedes. “But we’re working on it.”

            Charlie doesn’t have much time to respond as Cas rounds the nearest clothing rack and the cashier tells her the total, but Dean swears he sees some of the burden lift from the lines of her face. Not much. Just a little.

            Sometimes ‘just a little’ is as good as it gets.

***

            It’s a good day for a drive. Even if the drive is just back the way they came. Thick clouds slide gently across a sickeningly blue sky, blocking the sun every now and again to cast huge amorphous shadows over the highway. The light comes and goes as they make their way east – bursting through the back window of the ‘67 before fading away again. It seems to dissolve and reappear like magic. The spring air is pleasantly cool and Dean rolls down the windows of the Impala to take in some well-deserved fresh air.

            Charlie sits in the back and flops her arm out the left window, occasionally lifting it up to let her hand ride on the wind. Cas is in the passenger seat, staring out at the landscape with a perturbed look etched into his brow. His shoulders are tense, his arms tucked to his sides. Dean watches him for a moment too long and Cas turns to meet his gaze. Dean quickly whips his head back to stare over the dashboard. He doesn’t want Cas to think he’s worrying… but he’s worrying. Shifting his grip on the wheel, Dean sarcastically wonders what the former angel could _possibly_ be thinking about. It isn’t hard to guess when Cas sets his jaw like that – like he’s determined to do something about something. Dean knows that kind of preoccupation intimately.

            When someone or something changes you without your consent, righting that wrong can consume you. It can become your _obsession_. And you know it isn’t healthy. In the corners of your mind, you know. The thoughts in your head and the ways they keeping circling around and back are not good for you. Sometimes you see reason and come to your senses. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you know you’re spiraling and you see the way out plain as day and you decide you just don’t care. You stay locked in the comfort of that destructive cycle until it’s broken. And normally you’re not the one to break it. 

 _Cas deserves better than that,_ Dean thinks.

_He deserves better than to end up like me._

            Dean remembers what a future with a human Castiel looked like before. How could he forget? Drugged up beyond recognition, over-sexed, manipulative, and ambivalent about everything – including his life. Dean betrayed Cas in that timeline. He let his friend go to waste and rot before his very eyes and then he sacrificed him without a second thought. Cas was just another pig up for slaughter. But Dean’s not that man. He keeps telling himself that Cas and he are different than they were back then. They aren’t going down that road. It will never come to that. Dean decides right then that he won’t _ever_ let it come to that.

            He sneaks a look at Cas and again finds him rigid with frustration. Dean swivels his head toward the road again and whispers something under his breath. Cas hears the murmur over the rush of the wind.

            “What did you say, Dean?”

            “Uh…”

            “Dean?”

 _Shit,_ he thinks.

            “Nothing. Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

            Cas huffs in irritation. Dean sighs, remembering their conversation about trust. He figures practicing what he preaches might not be such a bad start.

            “Relax, I said.” Dean looks at Cas once more. “Just try to relax.”

            Cas glares from his seat and turns away, but releases some of the tension he’s been holding in his shoulders. His lungs fill with air and he exhales slowly. He leans back into the seat of the Impala, closing his eyes, and the wind seems to overtake him. It whips his hair around and pulls at the edges of his shirt, rippling the cotton over his skin. Dean has to force himself to watch the road.

            In a rare turn of events, he drives the speed limit the whole way home.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to thank all of my readers again for being so patient and generous with their kind words and encouragement! I am determined not to let you down. See you in a week! I PROMISE.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who said they were going to post this on Sunday? And guess what day it is? (Monday)
> 
> I am the worst. But thanks for sticking it out with me anyway. Here it is! The fourth chapter! And do I sense the hint of a plot emerging from the fluff??? Can it be????? Oh my! Shocking! (I'm pathetic.)
> 
> Anyway, I'm hoping to have chapter five up in a week -- two weeks tops. I'm not near popular enough to warrant having a fanfiction blog, but I do post occasional updates on [my regular blog](http://not-the-very-button.tumblr.com/). I write a lot of rants and meta and post a lot of fandom nonsense. So feel free to check it out if you're into that kind of thing and also wouldn't mind knowing where I am in the writing process while you're waiting for the next installment. 
> 
> Again, many thanks must be given to my glorious beta [Chandler](http://the-street-girl.tumblr.com/). She teaches me how to write less like an illiterate mountain troll and for that, I am grateful. 
> 
> I reiterate: I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters I've hijacked below. All glory to TPTB. Kripke is our king.

 

***

            “Alright, your highness, you should be all set.”

            Dean enters the control room with a wadded up set of sheets in his arms and inclines his head toward Charlie as he makes his way through to the lowest level of the compound. The whole gang is sat around the table chatting. Each of them has a drink in hand due to Crowley’s fastidious bartending and the atmosphere in The Bat Cave feels lighter than ever. Charlie regales one of her ComicCon exploits to much laughter – Cas excluded. Mostly he just clings to his beer bottle and looks politely confused. She gestures with her hands and moves through the story with grace and timing, as if she’s told it a million and one times before.

            The Queen of Moondoor had congregated everyone in the center room after dinner, first by challenging Sam to an arm wrestling match (the fight had lasted about 0.2 seconds), and then by answering Kevin’s line of questioning on her career as a professional hacker. The prophet had been awestruck by the revelation that he’d heard about and even witnessed some of her handy work. Apparently, Charlie was some sort of infamous hacktivist operating under the moniker “H@rl3y Qu1nn.” A discussion about her reprogramming of some corporate websites led into talk about her many other hobbies and eventually into a bawdy series of recollections from her favorite comic book conventions. Halfway into a story about how she’d drunkenly stumbled into Elijah Wood once while in full Legolas cosplay, Dean remembered that he’d done nothing about the sleeping arrangements and finished off his beer before heading upstairs. 

            He’d made the executive decision to offer Charlie his room for the night and to claim the couch in the den for himself. Charlie had protested, but he’d insisted. They had more rooms of course, the bunker seemed to be a never-ending maze of a facility, but none of those rooms had been cleaned yet. They all remained frozen in time, the dust collecting on the decades-old fabric of the beds. He didn’t want Charlie holing up in an uninspected room only to discover a nest of super-spiders or else a demon who’d been tucked away there in the fifties for safe keeping and then forgotten about. Not to mention, Dean’s slept on far worse than the den’s luxurious sofa and he’ll probably only catch a few hours at most.

            It’s about time he changed his sheets anyway.

            He kicks the door to the laundry room open with the edge of his foot and enters, letting it swing closed behind him. Dean tosses the sheets into one of many hampers stacked around the place and makes a mental note to wash the sheets sometime during the coming week. Maybe he’ll start working on the other bedrooms too. They seem to be amassing a small militia and it wouldn’t do to be unprepared for any new troops. He passes through the door again and listens to the slight echo of its squeaky hinges all the way down the hall.

            He re-enters the control room as Charlie delivers the punchline to her story.

            “And he says to me – oh, lord – he goes _I’m gonna have a hard time ever looking at Orlando the same way again!”_

            The laughter from the table is right on cue and Charlie leans back in her chair to survey them all with a smug smile.

            “Sounds like I missed a good one,” says Dean as he approaches the table.

            “You have _no_ idea!” Kevin wipes tears from his eyes and tries to stop giggling and hiccuping. Dean’s very glad that Kevin has been able to loosen up since joining them in Lebanon, but the drinking is worrisome. Not that Dean can really talk.

            Crowley stretches his arms in a yawn and stands up from the table. He excuses himself and leaves to go wash his empty wine glass. Dean can’t help but notice that Charlie’s eyes stay glued to the former demon until he’s completely out of her sightline. There’s a sort of shadow in her eye. She slides her chair away from the table and reaches to grab Dean’s empty beer bottle from in front of him.

            “What do you think you’re doing?” Dean asks, snatching the bottle out of her reach. “You’re our guest.”

            Charlie sighs.

            “Listen, this whole ‘humble host’ shtick is giving me the creeps,” she says, making a grab for the bottle. Dean holds it out of her reach.  She frowns and takes a step back. “No, seriously. If I wake up tomorrow morning to find Sam wearing an apron and you making me a muffin basket, I’ll vomit. I will actually, literally puke.” Charlie lunges toward the bottle and Dean tosses it over her head to Sam who catches it instinctively – but not before it almost smacks Kevin in the face. The kid screeches a little and holds his arms up in a delayed reaction. They play “keep away” for a minute or two before Charlie’s had enough. And even though Sam is the one with the bottle, she straightens up and glares at Dean with her hands on her hips.

            “I’m serious. You’re letting me stay here. You’re lending me your bed. The least I can do is _help with the dishes_.” She says her last words pointedly and flicks her eyes toward the kitchen.

            _Ohhhh,_ Dean thinks. _She wants on Crowley patrol._

            “Alright!” he holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine. Pitch in if you want, but don’t come crying to me when Cas starts asking you to do his laundry.”

            Cas jolts upright at the mention of his name. He seems to have been completely ignorant to their game of “monkey in the middle.”  In fact, he looks pretty out of in general, as if he’s having a hard time staying awake. The disoriented way in which he avoids eye-contact is hard to ignore. Noticing this, Sam shoots a quick glance at Dean before turning his attention back to Charlie. She’s strutted around to him and has her hand outstretched. With a shrug and a smirk he relinquishes the bottle and Charlie grabs another off the table in front of him. She appears to make her own assessment of Cas’s behavior and gets that familiar glint in her eye. The whole thing is pretty obnoxious and Dean can’t help but roll his eyes when Charlie and Sam share what he’s sure is meant to be a ‘meaningful’ look.

            “Kevin,” Charlie says. “Would you mind getting the bottles from over there? And, actually, if you’re interested in hacking stories I should really tell you about the time I completely defiled The Westboro Baptist Church homepage.”

            “Wait – please tell me you’re the one who covered their website in pictures of kittens and rainbows.”

            “The very same!”

            Kevin eagerly scoops up the remaining bottles and follows Charlie out of the control room. Then it’s just the three of them. Team Free Will together again. It’s been a long time since Dean christened them that. It’s been a long time since free will was their biggest problem. Sam drums his fingers against the tabletop and Cas continues making the same vacant expression. Silence fills the room. They hear the faint sounds of laughter and dishes being done. It’s an incredibly familiar ambience now. It sparks Dean’s recall of so many moth-eaten memories: his mother at the sink, humming _Blackbird_ and washing their pie tin; her making him a sandwich with the crusts cut off and smiling when he finishes the whole thing. In a moment of unusual clarity, Dean wonders if she’s why he’s drawn to food, cooking, the kitchen. It was always her place. It was _his_ and her place. And that kitchen in Lawrence Kansas, with the faded wallpaper and the gingham table cloth and the pots hung from the ceiling like a cast-iron mobile, it holds the remnants of what few precious childhood moments Dean was ever allowed.

            Sam clears his throat and shakes Dean out of his daydream. His brother’s got that puppy-dog look on his face – the one he makes when he’s worried about something. For a brief second Dean’s terrified that Sammy might still be sick and trying to hide it, but – no. That’s not right. Sam wouldn’t look near this perturbed if the trouble was his own. And he hasn’t stopped staring at Cas since Charlie left the room. Dean’s about to ask him what’s wrong when Cas abruptly stands and pushes his chair under the table. He hasn’t changed into his new clothes and is still wearing Dean’s t-shirt. There’s a fresh beer stain on the hem.

            “I think I’ll go to bed now. Goodnight, Sam. Goodnight, Dean.”

            “Night, Cas.”

            “Night.”

            Cas ascends the stairs and disappears down the main hallway.

            “Dude,” Dean says, turning back to Sam. “Are you okay? You seem… jumpy. I don’t know.”

            “No! Yeah! I’m – ahem, fine. I’m good.” Sam smiles with his lips shut and Dean returns the gesture.

            Now he _knows_ something’s up.

            “You make any headway on Metadouche’s spell then?”

            Sam looks unnerved by the question.

            “Nah, you know. More of the same. Nothing that fits.” He shifts under Dean’s gaze. “At this point I’m thinking we may not find it all. At least not here. I mean, I know The Men of Letters knew their stuff, but what are the odds of them just _happening_ to have a spell with that kind of clout lying around?”

            Dean nods. He isn’t buying Sam’s bullshit for a second, but it’s late and he’s not in the mood. Whatever his brother’s trying to cover up is just gonna have to wait for another day. He lets the subject drop.

            “How was, uh, shopping?” Sam asks, trying to reign in a sneer.

            Thing is, Dean actually kind of enjoyed himself. But he can’t just admit that. Not to Sam. He remembers the Zeppelin shirt tucked inside his dresser and feels a warm little twinge in his chest.

            “Oh God,” he says.  “Don’t get me started. I about committed murder-suicide right there in the store.”

            Sam’s not the only one with secrets, after all.

 

***

 

 

            There’s a shift in the air. That’s why Dean wakes up. The change is subtle, but distinct and it disturbs the hunter from his sleep. Normally, with a shift like that, Dean would be up and out of bed – ready to maim or kill whatever the cause. Maybe it’s because the security of the bunker has made him soft or maybe it’s just that he recognizes the scent of the intruder, but Dean does not wake on the defensive. Instead he yawns, blinks open his stinging eyes, and raises his head slightly to stare at Cas, who leans against the arm of the couch by Dean’s feet. It’s almost pitch black in the den, but Cas’s outline is completely recognizable. His silhouette casts no shadow. He makes no noise.

            “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers softly, his voice low and gruffer than usual.

            Dean reaches over to his left and scrapes his cellphone off the polished coffee table. The glare of the white little screen blinds him temporarily. “3:46 AM,” it reads. He locks it again and tosses it back onto the table with a loud clunk. He can’t see Cas anymore.

            “S’alright,” he grumbles, sliding a hand down his face. With his other hand he reaches back over his head and fumbles with the switch of a lamp. It clicks on and illuminates a smartly dressed living room. In addition to the couch Dean’s currently occupying, the den also houses a plump arm chair, a flat screen tv tucked into one corner, a turntable beside that, and is of course covered wall to wall in books. Built-in shelves line the space and hold, not hunting texts, but pleasure reads. They’re alphabetized by author starting on the far right wall and run clockwise around the entire room. Dean had spent a few hours browsing the titles one day and had been floored to uncover a copy of Vonnegut’s very first novel tucked into the stacks: _Prayer Piano_. It was in pristine condition. Dean had never read it and so claimed it as his own. It was now secreted next to the vinyl collection in his bedroom.

            The lamp also illuminates Cas, who blinks wearily in an attempt to adjust to the lighting shift. He looks just as tired as he did at dinner, maybe even more so. He doesn’t wobble one way or another as he leans against the couch, but stays stiff. It’s only his face that gives away his true exhaustion. The circles under his eyes are dark and prominent. They never used to get that way. Dean lifts himself into a sitting position on the couch, his back against the arm, his legs stretched out on the seat.

            “What are you doing up?” Dean asks.

            Cas is quiet for a moment.

            “Nightmare,” he replies at last.

            “Good to know you’re still a bad liar,” Dean deadpans. He appraises his friend thoughtfully and something about Cas’s manner flicks a switch in his brain.

            “You weren’t… You weren’t trying to watch over me… were you?”

            Cas looks sheepish and ducks his head against his chest. His erect posture falls and he slides from the arm of the couch onto the cushion next to it. There’s a soft groan from the frame of the sofa. If it were any shorter, Dean’s feet would be in Cas’s lap.

            “It’s something I used to do a lot.”

            Dean doesn’t say anything. Cas continues speaking.

            “I watched out for you… probably more than you knew. It made me feel of import, as if I alone had a very special job to do in keeping you safe. I felt it was my duty to act as your protector… I wasn’t very good at it, was I? ” Cas lifts his head from his chest and avoids Dean’s eyes.

            “To be fair,” Dean says, “You had your work cut out for you trying to keep _me_ off Death’s doorstep. Actually, I’m pretty sure the next time I die I get some sort of reward for my customer loyalty.”

            Cas smiles slightly at the joke and Dean watches the corners of his mouth strain against whatever weight lies heavy upon him.

            “That said,” says Dean with a frown. “The looming over me thing… I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty creepy.”

            Cas’s smile fades away and he’s left looking just as embarrassed as before.

            “I appreciate it! I do, but… Anyway, you’re a human now. You gotta sleep too, sometime.”

            “It’s difficult,” says Cas. “I find it near impossible to… to…”

            “Let go?” Dean offers.

            “Yes, let go. And when I do manage it, I’m inundated with visions of the past – dreams, memories. It’s very disconcerting.” Cas props his elbows on his knees and lowers his face to rest in the cradle of his hands. He massages his forehead with his fingertips. “I’ve never slept like this before – fully human. It’s… it’s harder than I imagined. So, I thought I would see how long my new form can function without rest. The less I’m required to sleep, the better off I’ll be.”

            Dean reaches to run a hand through his hair and sighs.

            “Jesus, Cas. How long have you been awake for?”

            Silence.

            “ _Cas._ ”

            “What time is it?”

            “4:00 AM.”

            “Then approximately forty-five hours.”

            “Fucking Hell!”

            “Give or take an hour.”

            “You can’t do shit like this, Cas! You’re gonna make yourself sick!” Dean throws the blanket off his lower half, pointedly not caring that he’s only in a t-shirt and boxers. He gets off the couch and stalks out of the room, leaving his friend behind in a confused stupor. When he returns, he’s clutching a packet of some kind and a glass of water.  He sets the glass down heavily on the coffee table and fumbles with the silver and plastic pouch. As he sits at Cas’s side, Dean pops two pills from the packet and holds them out in his hand without comment.

            “What are they?” Cas asks with apprehension.

            “It’s not poison, for Christ’s sake, it’s Benadryl. Now take it before I decide knocking you over the head is the easier solution, here.” Dean shakes his hand slightly from side to side. The pink pills shift and roll in his palm. He raises his eyebrows as if to say _go on._

            Cas scoops up the capsules and his fingers linger against the skin of Dean’s palm. Dean chalks it up to poor motor control and sleep deprivation, but something about it is... strange. Intimate? It doesn’t help that Cas stares directly into Dean’s eyes the whole time. It’s as if he says, “Okay, Dean. I trust you. You know best.” Their knees collide as Cas reaches for the water and downs the medication. Then a moment of silence, neither knowing what to do or say. There’s no reason for Dean to be so close to Cas now, but he doesn’t move away. Instead he takes the glass from Cas’s hand and allows their fingers to slide over top of each other. Again, it’s a small gesture, an almost irrelevant point of contact, but it _does_ things to Dean. He tries not to think what he’s thinking. He tries to quiet the buzzing in his head. He’s been keeping this… tendency hidden for this long. Why is it all of a sudden so much harder?

            He sets the water down on the coffee table again. And maybe it’s just that it’s late and they’re close and Dean can smell the scent of Irish Spring soap wafting off of Cas’s skin, but he suddenly can’t sit there anymore. He pops off the couch so fast that Cas jumps a little. Sleep is already pulling at his eyelids. By contrast, Dean is wide awake and any hope he has of getting back to sleep is dwindling. He needs a distraction. The TV calls to him with its promise of mindless entertainment. He ducks behind the table they’ve moved to support the monitor, and rummages through a cardboard box sat there on the floor. It’s filled with the DVD’s they’ve collected during their stint at The Bunker. He takes his time searching for something to preoccupy his mind and The Complete Star Trek Film Collection catches his eye. He grabs the thick case from the corner of the box. It was a birthday present from Sam in retaliation for the Harry Potter Box Set he’d gifted his brother at Christmas. They were both dorks at heart. They both just hated to admit it.

            Dean slides off the sheath of the case and selects a DVD at random. He switches on the TV, slides the disc into the player, and turns to find Cas watching him.

            “What?” Dean grumbles, snatching the remote off the coffee table and returning to the couch. He doesn’t sit quite as close as before, but he also doesn’t put as much space between Cas and himself as he really could. It’s a compromise, he decides, but a compromise of what? As the previews roll, he props his bare-feet atop the table and crosses his arms. Cas is still watching him.

            “Should I leave?” Cas asks. He’s confused, clearly. The meds probably aren’t helping.

            “You can if you want,” says Dean. “But I swear to God, if I find out later you’ve somehow managed to stay conscious, I really am going to knock your lights out. Nothing quite like a head injury to help recharge your batteries. I would know.” Dean sees Cas smile out of the corner of his eye and hears him chuckle under his breath. The previews continue to play, advertising various spin-off series, while Dean picks anxiously at a callous on his left hand and waits. When the main menu of the DVD finally appears, (It’s _The Wrath of Khan,_ Dean notes) he presses play on the remote and settles in for The Kobayashi Maru and Ricardo Montalban. As the film progresses he finds himself explaining aspects of the plot to Cas, who nods and follows the details surprisingly well.

            “So, Admiral Kirk and Captain Spock have a history?” Cas asks through half-lidded eyes.

            “Yes. They used to serve together on the S.S. Enterprise – that’s the big ship they’re on now. Kirk was Captain, Spock was first officer, and that other man from before –”

            “The Doctor?”

            “Yeah, Bones, he was the other member of their little trio. Head physician. But Kirk and Spock are best friends. That’s important to know. Comes into play later.”

            “…Best friends…” Cas repeats the words slowly, rolling them around in his mouth before speaking.

            “Oh!” Dean says. “And Spock is part alien. That’s why he’s got the ear thing going on.” Dean gestures to his own ears and Cas gets a goofy little smirk on his face. Dean ignores it. “He’s half human, half Vulcan.”

            Before Cas can ask the question, Dean answers it.

            “Vulcans are like these – well not emotionless, exactly. But kind of. They’re all about logic. And having feelings for them is kind of seen as this weak thing. So Spock tries to keep his human side under wraps.”

            The dazed smile slides from Cas’s face and he furrows his brow in concentration – as if the information Dean has just relayed is of monumental importance for him to understand.

            “But Kirk… Kirk is human.” Cas continues to fight the drugs that are now holding him captive on the edge of unconsciousness.

            “Right. Kirk’s like Spock’s opposite in a lotta ways. He’s hotheaded, goes with his gut, a real ladies man. But… you know. They make a good team.”

            The two of them sit and watch the movie for a while without talking. Dean looks over to his right every couple of seconds to check on his friend.  The antihistamines haven’t won the battle just yet. Cas keeps jolting himself awake. He’ll be almost out, barely clinging to awareness, and then shake or push himself into a more upright position. Dean rolls his eyes. Khan appears to The Enterprise before Cas speaks again. When he does, he slurs in an almost unintelligible fashion.

            “I like… Kirk. He’s… He’s good.”

            Dean laughs.

            “Yeah. But Spock’s always been my favorite,” he replies.

            Cas doesn’t respond.

            Dean glances toward the silent form beside him to find that sleep has finally claimed the former angel. His head is tilted back, his mouth slightly open, and his arms deadweight by his sides. Dean has to stifle another laugh and considers snapping a few pictures with his phone, but decides against it in the end. It’s too early to be so cruel. Dean pauses the movie and stands to go retrieve it from the DVD player and return it to its case. He’s about to turn out the lamp by the couch and leave the den when he sees Cas again – his neck scrunched uncomfortably against the back of the seat cushion. Dean looks at the lamp, looks at Cas, looks at the lamp and leaves it on before making his way to help his friend avoid a pinched nerve.

            Dean stares at Cas for a moment and then reaches down to grasp the other man firmly beneath both arms. He grips the strong length of ribcage just below Cas’s armpits and heaves his torso to the right. Cas drops onto his side and nearly drags Dean down with him, but the hunter catches himself on the edge of the coffee table. Using a similar method as before, he tugs Cas’s body along until his head is far enough down the couch to allow room for his feet to rest on the other end. Dean lifts Cas’s legs onto the cushions and throws a blanket over top of them. Again, he goes to turn out the light and stops.

            Here he is. Dean Winchester. Inveterate liar. Hopeless alcoholic. Traitor to Heaven.  And he, of all people, has been charged with taking care of this once powerful being. He’s tucking a goddamn, certified Angel of The Lord into bed. And it’s funny, in more ways than one, because Dean kind of gets it. He gets why Cas has always offered so freely to watch out for him while he sleeps. Their friendship – profound bond, whatever – comes with responsibilities. Before, when Cas was the superior figure, Dean imagined he felt the looming concern of the angel wherever he went. Cas was always… well, _almost_ always there whenever Dean needed him. He pulled Cas out of heavenly battles to make house calls. He consistently and perpetually alienated Castiel from his brothers and sisters. Though, in the end, Cas has always made his own decisions (and perhaps been one of the first angels since Lucifer to do so) Dean cannot ignore or disregard his own influence on those choices.

            And now that it’s Cas who is vulnerable and in need? Dean understands the urge to protect him. Even as he snores on the living room couch.

            That responsibility falls to him now. He’s got home court advantage. His guardian angel needs a guardian of his own and it seems only fair that Dean return the favor. With one more glance at Cas’s sleeping face, Dean turns out the lamp. He uses his phone to guide himself out of the darkened room and walks slowly toward the kitchen. As he wanders the halls of The Bunker he hums a Beatles tune and contemplates just how far the tables have turned. 

            He's too preoccupied to notice that he's not the only one awake on that particuar Summer morning. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know it's technically been two weeks and one day, but here it is! Chapter Five! What a doozy. 
> 
> I love you all dearly for waiting patiently and continuing to support me with your comments and kudos. Seriously. You're all stars. Each and every one of you. 
> 
> As usual, this chapter would not be nearly so bearable if it weren't for my charming beta, [Chandler](http://www.the-street-girl.tumblr.com). She screams at me and cracks the whip and, masochist that I am, I love it. If I'm not careful, I fear she might tattoo "SHOW DON'T TELL" onto my forehead while I sleep. 
> 
> Supernatural is not my brainchild and I don't own any of the characters depicted below. Like the proverbial boy on the ant hill, I just like to watch through my magnifying glass as they squirm and beg me to leave them alone. *ahem*
> 
> The Chapter:

***

 

            “Because it’s none of my goddamn business.”

            “Yes, but if the situation were reversed, wouldn’t you want to know?”

            Crowley’s voice is hushed and the insistence of his and Sam’s discussion peaks Dean’s interest. Rather than strolling into the library as he’d intended to do only moments before, he pauses outside. The lights in the control room are dim and he finds it all too easy to conceal himself in the shadows. Dean presses against one of the walls and while he can’t see into the library, he can hear into it – the flipping of pages, the occasional groan of someone shifting in their chair, and the muffled hum of music that bleeds from Kevin’s earphones. Every noise reverberates crisply through the archway of the room. It’s as if the space has been miked and amplified specifically for use in eavesdropping. 

            “I don’t think I _would_ want to know, actually.” Sam sighs. A book slams shut.

            “You’ve got to be joking,” snorts Crowley. He clicks his tongue against the top of his mouth like an exasperated nanny.

            “I’m really not, Crowley,” says Sam. There’s a warning inherent in his tone. Dean recognizes it instantly, but then he’s an expert when it comes to Sam’s moods. There are markers and patterns. For example, when Sammy speaks, his voice sliding from high to low in a hurried manner, it means trouble. It means, ‘we’re done talking about this.’ John always did the same thing and knowing that saved Dean from more than a few lashings back in the day.

            “Maybe that was a bad example,” Crowley concedes. “If you were in D—”

            Sam cuts him off with a short hiss.

            “Oh bloody – _fine_. If it were you instead of him, things would be different. You wouldn’t want to know because you wouldn’t… feel inclined to… _take action_ were this information made known to you.”

            “ _Take action_? What exactly do you think is gonna happen here?”

            “You know exactly what I think is going to happen. I think it’s been happening for quite some time.”

            “I just don’t know if that’s true or not.” Sam pauses. “And I’m not willing to risk it.”

            “Oh come on–”

            “No!” Sam raises his voice and the sudden increase in volume makes Dean flinch against the concrete. “I _don’t_ know and neither do you and I’m not gonna go sticking my head where it doesn’t belong.”

            There’s a heavy silence. Sam sighs again.

            “If it becomes relevant to the investigation, I’ll say something, okay? I just really don’t want to fuck with things. Things are…”

            “Good,” Crowley mumbles.

            “Yes,” says Sam, “good. We could all use a little ‘good’ right now.”

            Dean takes this as his opportunity to emerge from hiding.

            “Who could use a little what now?” he asks, skipping up the steps into the library – a big, fake smile stuck to his face. Sam jumps at his brother’s entrance and accidently knocks a book off the table. It clatters against the tile and Sam scrambles to retrieve it. Crowley, however, doesn’t miss a beat.

            “We could all use a little food right now,” he says smoothly. “When’s dinner?”

            “I don’t know. When are you making it?” Dean fires back. Crowley’s been getting on his last nerve lately. Ever since Charlie left, really. Maybe she’d thrown fuel on the back on the fire with her suspicions. Or maybe Dean’s just about fucking had it with a certain someone rearranging his t-shirt drawer when he’s not around.

            “Ah! Is it my night already? I best get on with it then.” Crowley smiles amicably and saunters off to the kitchen, throwing Sam a pointed glance as he goes. His agreeability only pisses Dean off further.  Sam’s guilty expression isn’t helping either. The remnants of the conversation Dean’s just overheard chafe at the insides of his skull. And since when are Sam and Crowley best pals, anyway? Sharing secrets over homework assignments like prepubescent girls. He’s about to round on Sam and demand an answer when Kevin pulls his headphones out of his ears and stands.

            “Dean! Um, can I talk to you about something?” he says, sliding the angel tablet away from him like an empty plate. Kevin’s taken over an entire corner of the library. The walls of this space are covered in notes, most of them illegible, some scrawled on the torn corners of takeout menus, others organized into neat outlines. He normally works in silence, blasting music, and ignoring the rest of them.

            “What’s this about now?” Dean grumbles, turning away from Sam– who’s trying desperately to find the right page in his book again.

            “It’s about your angel, actually.”

            Sam snorts. Dean whips his head back around to shoot an icy glare at his brother.

            “First of all,” Dean says, “as he’s so fond of pointing out these days, he’s _not_ an angel. Second of all, he’s not _my_ angel.”

            “Right. Sure.” Says Kevin, like he’s not at all convinced that either of those statements are true. Dean half-wonders how long it would take to locate a new prophet if this one were to suddenly find himself without a pulse. “Anyway, I need you to find a way to… calm him the _hell_ down.”

            Dean furrows his brow. “What are you talking about? Calm? He’s totally calm.”

            “Around you, maybe,” Kevin laughs humorlessly. “Today I had to ask him a couple of questions about the angel tablet and he about tore my head off.”

            Dean’s eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. He thought Cas had been doing better.

            “What the fuck’d you ask him?”

            Kevin just stares at Dean, mouth agape. “Does it matter?”

            “Well, if you asked _me_ about certain things, I’d probably try to cave your head in too. So, yeah, it matters,” says Dean.

            “It was about his grace. I found something interesting in the tablet.” Kevin walks further into his corner and scans the notes, eventually pulling a crumpled slip of paper off the wall. “It talks about the essence of the grace, the significance of it, blah blah blah. But then here”—Kevin holds the paper in front of Dean’s face and stabs at it with his pointer finger—“it gets a little confusing. The tablet goes on about how if a grace is removed, but ‘twice gone’ or ‘unwanted,’ no restoration can be made. I’m just not totally sure what that means. So I took it to Cas.”

            “What’d he say?” asks Sam. He shares a worried look with Dean.

            “He told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I couldn’t comprehend the tablet maybe I had no business being a prophet at all. But I’m paraphrasing.”

            “Are you sure he wasn’t… uh, just being Cas?” asks Sam.

            “He screamed. A lot. It was kind of hard to misinterpret.”

            “Good. No, really. That’s _awesome_ ,” Dean says dryly, squeezing the bridge of his nose.

            Kevin scowls. “This isn’t my fault.”

            “We’re not saying it is, Kevin,” says Sam.

            “You know I’m doing this for him! So he can get his stupid angel mojo back and the least he could do is not rip me a new one when I ask a simple fucking question!”

            “Alright, alright. Relax.” Dean says, raising his hands. “I get it. Cas is a dick. That’s nothing new. But maybe – just for right now – you could cut the guy a little slack, eh?”

            “Cut him some slack? All anyone’s done since he fell is ‘cut him some slack!’ I’m kind of fucking tired of tiptoeing around him.”

            “Just—” Dean sighs. “Just don’t ask him anything else about the tablet, alright? You got a question, come to me.”

            “Yeah. Whatever.” Kevin huffs, reaching down to violently unplug his laptop from the wall outlet. “I don’t know what else I expected from you.”

            “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Hey! Don’t you walk away from me! What do you want me to do then, huh?” Dean shouts as Kevin heads for the staircase of the control room.

            “I don’t know!” Kevin calls back without turning around. “He’s your angel! You figure out!”

            “He’s not my ang—!” Dean’s cut off by the sound of Kevin slamming the door to the upper hallway. The silence in the wake of their argument is only slightly deafening.  Dean puts a hand to his head and massages his temples. He feels a headache coming on.

            “How old is the kid again?” he asks.

            “Uh… twenty.” Sam answers.

             “Jesus, twenty? You weren’t nearly so pissy at twenty. Were you?” Dean walks over to Sam’s table and drops into a chair beside his brother.

            “I don’t know. I don’t think we were speaking when I was twenty.”

            More silence.

            “Ah. I forgot.”

            “Do you want me to go talk to him?”

            “Would you?” Dean rubs at his face a couple of times before looking up at Sam, who seems amused, but not unkindly so.

            “Sure,” Sam says, “but you should really go see Cas too.”

            Dean doesn’t like the way Sam says that.

            “…Why?” he asks slowly and Sam hesitates.

            “I just think maybe Kevin has a point. He’s not a kid, you know. And you can’t deny that Cas has been… difficult.” Sam frowns.

            “Fine,” Dean agrees, then sighs. “Fine.”

            Sam looks as if he’s going to say something else, but leaves without another word. It isn’t until he’s up the stairs and out of sight that Dean realizes he still has no clue what Sam and Crowley are hiding from him. If they’re hiding anything from him at all.

***

 

            Dean finds himself outside Castiel’s bedroom, a fist held inches from the surface of the shut door. He stands there, frozen like an idiot, and tries to decide whether having this conversation with Cas is even worth it. It’s not like he can just snap Cas out of whatever mood he’s in. He’s not a freaking miracle worker. So why in the hell do Kevin and Sam expect Dean to know how to make it all better? What do they expect him to be able to accomplish here?

            He’s about made the decision to turn and leave when the handle of the door in front of him jiggles. It swings open from the inside and Cas stops in his tracks, nearly barreling into Dean’s chest. They stare awkwardly at each other. Dean’s fist is still raised and he lowers it slowly.

            “Hello, Dean,” says Cas.

            “Uh – hey,” Dean replies, taking a step backward.

            “Did you need something?”

            “Me? Uh, no. Well – yes. _No_ … Kind of.”

            Cas raises an eyebrow and then steps back as well.

            “Come in,” He says, motioning for Dean to pass through the door. Dean does so and quickly takes in the room. It looks a lot like his – everything neat and tidy and in its place. Cas doesn’t have a lot of possessions, but the few he does are well taken care of. His trench coat is hung on the back of the closet door, visible and at the ready. A place of honor.

            “This is about Kevin, I assume,” Cas says, shutting the door. He wrings his hands.

            “Yeah, Kevin asked me to talk to you.”  Dean sighs and makes a lap around the room. He straightens things that don’t need to be straightened and fiddles with whatever is in his reach. “So, what happened – I guess?”

            Cas frowns and watches Dean press buttons on his alarm clock. “Kevin didn’t tell you?”

            “No he did,” says Dean, “I just meant – you, what happened with you? Why did you…”

            “Go all ‘Full Metal Jacket’?”Cas recalls with a smile.  

            “Yeah. Why’d you flip?”

            Cas puts a hand on the back of his head and paces a little. Now they both wander around the room, neither looking at each other, both unwilling to relax. It’s a shitty circus act that no one in their right mind would want to watch.

            “I’m not sure how to explain it,” says Cas, finally. “Before now his questions would have upset me, maybe made me uncomfortable given their implications, but the rage – that was something new. Not like any rage I’ve felt before. It was as if a dam inside of me had reached capacity and burst. Everything behind it came out, not just what was relevant. It’s a very particular way of feeling.” With an air of chagrin, Cas sits down on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know if I’m making any sense.”

            “Welcome to the club,” mumbles Dean. He sits down next to Cas with his arms propped up on his knees. “You’re making sense. It’s just like I told you, you can’t hold it in – not like this. I wasn’t kidding. You’ll start taking it out on everybody around you and it’ll get a whole lot worse than just yelling at Kev.” Dean thinks he hears something on the other side of the door – the scuffling of boots, or the bitter grumblings of a dead man. He ignores them.

            “You mentioned I need a way to channel the anger?” says Cas.

            “Yeah, yeah. A hobby, something.”

            “And you have music.”

            Dean’s head snaps up from staring between his knees at the floor. He looks at Cas strangely, watches him smirk.

            “I… I guess I do.” Dean must look stupid – all wide-eyed and thrown for a loop – but it’s an odd thing to hear and discuss so casually. A voice in his head urges him to run _THE FUCK_ out of the room, but he doesn’t.

            “Well, I was wondering,” Cas says while Dean is dazed. “If maybe you could… we could…”

            A pause.

            “Nevermind.”

            _Is Cas blushing? Cas is blushing. **Why** is he blushing? _

_Why are you noticing that he’s blushing?_

_Why are you noticing that you’re noticing?_

            Dean clears his throat. “What? What were you wondering?”

            “Maybe you could help me…” There’s another pause during which Dean wants to shake the man beside him until he finishes his stupid sentence. “With some combat training?” Cas studies his nervous hands intently.

            “That all?” Relief unfurls in the pit of Dean’s stomach and something else too. Something Dean can’t quite place, but it hits him low.  

            “I’m not used to being confined to the dimensions of this form. I’m curious to see how it affects my movement. Under pressure. Plus it might… help… things.”

            _Right_ , Dean thinks. _‘Things.’ What is it with everyone and ‘things’ lately?_

            “Sure,” Dean says, standing up from the bed and stretching. “I mean, it’s not like I _want_ to kick your ass, but if you insist.”

            Cas narrows his eyes a little, but grins.

            “Oh, I don’t think I’m the one who needs to worry about his ass.”

            Dean snorts and shakes his head.

            “Dude… I’m not even gonna _touch_ that one.”

***

 

            For being so worried about his new form, Cas sure knows how to handle himself. He shifts easily from stance to stance – never losing balance – never faltering. He makes eye contact with Dean as they tussle and a dormant flame seems to awaken in him. His stare becomes brutal, like it was in the days before his rebellion. And this should probably scare Dean. But there are things that just stay with a person, no matter what. For some it’s a quirk or a trait. For some it’s riding a bike. Dean never did get around to figuring that one out, but for him it’s knowing instinctively when to lift his arm to block a jab. It’s sensing an ambush before it happens. It’s being the first to fire in a Mexican standoff and walking away unscathed. Cas offers little to fear with his intensity. It’s an intensity his opponent mirrors.

            They aren’t using real blades of course. Dean found a whole store of wooden training knives in the closet of one of the bunker’s many rooms. They’re sleek, made from polished redwood, and they feel good in hand. Cas absentmindedly flips his around when they stop to take a rest or guzzle water— which is more often than Dean would like to admit. He may occasionally find a grey hair, or notice his laugh lines growing in number. But just because Sam makes a point of sticking to a rigorous exercise routine and Kevin can eat 3,000 calories a day and _lose weight_ , does not make Dean old. He’s just surrounded by freaks of nature. Cas, for once, is not one of those freaks and needs a break every now and again.

            “How old was Jimmy?” Dean asks as he wipes sweat from his brow. He’s curious.

            Cas looks taken aback, but answers. “34 when I first asked him to allow me in, why?”

            “So that would make him… what 38? 39 now? Shit, Cas! You’re almost 40!”

            “I’m a lot older than 40, Dean.” Cas rolls his eyes.

            “But physically, I mean, you’re almost 40... Oh fuck. You’re only four years older than me. _I’m_ almost 40!”

            “I am eons older than you. I was sentient before your species evolved.”

            “40. Jesus. Alright, come on. Back to work. I need to beat up an old man and make myself feel better,” Dean smiles. Wide, like he hasn’t in a while. He flashes back to the first time his father let him near a set of throwing knives. Sammy had stood on the sidelines and watched, cheering whenever Dean hit a bulls-eye. His aim had earned a pat on the back from his father. _Just like darts, eh, Dean?_ Just like darts.

            Dean takes a final swig of water and walks onto the mat at the center of the training room, admiring again the charm of the place. A not-so-secret part of him wants to put on “Eye of The Tiger” at full blast and reenact the montage from _Rocky_. There’s an old school speed bag in the corner, a full set of weights, archery equipment by the back wall – everything a hunter dreams of owning, but never has the chance to. It may be outdated, but it’s utilizable. Dean adores it. He considers actually bothering to work out, just so he can spend time in the place.

            He stretches his neck a little and spots Cas out of the corner of his eye pulling the sweaty t-shirt from his back. There, between his shoulder blades, is an anti-possession tattoo. They’d taken him to get it almost immediately after The Fall and at Cas’s insistence. There had been an affordable parlor two cities over and Dean had agreed to drive. The place smelled of an old ash tray, but the resident tattoo artist was competent. She hadn’t even blinked when Dean pulled aside the collar of his shirt to explain what they wanted. If she made any assumptions, she didn’t voice them. But just as she had lowered her disposable razor to shave Cas’s chest for the transfer, he’d stopped her.

            “Not getting cold feet, are ya, Cas?” Dean had asked, clapping Cas on the shoulder, and cocking an eyebrow.

            “No, but, I’d maybe like it somewhere else,” he said shyly. “Would that be alright?”

            Dean couldn’t tell at the time whether Cas was asking him or the tattoo artist.

            “Dude, it’s your body,” he’d said.

            The artist had shrugged and Cas had flipped over to lie down on the bench instead.

            There weren’t scars on his back – no wounds, no gaping holes, or feathered stumps. And he’d sat impossibly still while the needle pressed into the tender skin over his spine. Dean didn’t see him flinch, not once.

            In the present, Dean doesn’t just notice the tattoo or how it’s identical to his own. He notices strange things, like the perspiration on Cas’s skin.  He notices muscle definition. And how snug and low the waistband of Cas’s sweatpants fall. When the former angel turns around it becomes even more difficult for Dean to ignore or deny that how he’s looking at Cas isn’t exactly ambivalent. The guy’s fit. That’s not new. So he’s got great arms… and hip bones that form a v-shaped ridge… So what?  Dean’s seen it all before – and covered in bees, no less. So why does he reach to remove his own damp t-shirt? Why does his skin burn with a heat that isn’t from exertion?

            Cas is across from Dean now, poised on his bare feet, his eyes alight again. The wooden knife in his hand twirls as if by its own volition and Dean’s palms sweat. His own knife feels like it might slide out of his grip at any second.

            “Ready?” Cas asks in a dangerous tone.

            “Ready,” Dean replies.

            Cas lunges forward and catches Dean off guard. He’s forced to dive hard to his right and slams his shoulder against the mat, which only moderately softens his fall. Cas turns to attack again, but topples over when Dean trips him with his legs. This provides a small window in which for Dean to get back on his feet, but Cas recovers quickly. He kneels, swiping at Dean’s ankles. The two of them fight with skill and vigor. Neither proves to have a distinct advantage over the other, only different styles of combat. It’s an oddly complimentary arrangement. Cas moves like a cat, graceful, darting, even under the constraints of his flesh. He does not hesitate. He only acts.  Dean, meanwhile, eschews subtlety for raw power and forces Cas back with every indelicate attack.

            “Guess being human hasn’t slowed you down much,” Dean huffs as he again dodges Cas’s blade.

            “It has, though,” says Cas between jabs. “This is all much harder than it used to be.”

            Dean’s knife is knocked from his hands and off the mat. It clatters on the concrete floor of the training room. Cas takes immediate advantage of Dean’s vulnerability and propels himself forward. They both slam to the ground. Cas almost wins then, but Dean succeeds in keeping the wooden edge of Cas’s blade away from his neck.

            “Yeah, you really seem to be struggling here Cas,” Dean grumbles, bitter under the weight of his friend’s torso. Cas smirks, inching his knife closer to Dean’s throat with each passing moment.

            “I said it was harder than it used to be. I didn’t say it wasn’t easy.”

            As if fueled by spite, Dean overpowers Cas and flips them. Now Cas is the one pinned, his weapon rendered useless by the fierce grip Dean has on his wrists. They breathe for a moment – an impasse – Dean straddling Cas’s torso and Cas unable to wound him. Sweat beads off of Dean’s chest, rolls over his tattoo, and drips into the hollow of Cas’s collar bone. Their eyes meet. Pupils dilate.

            “Not so easy now, huh?” The question comes out a little huskier than Dean thought it would.

            Another tense moment fills the air with the sounds of caught breath. Cas opens his mouth to speak, his eyes half-lidded, but not in their usual squint. He’s about to say something when—

            “ _I’m a Barbie girl in a Barbie wo-o-orld! Life in plastic! It’s fantastic! You can—”_

“THAT’S IT. I’M GONNA KILL HER.”

Before Charlie had gone she’d left Dean with a couple of parting gifts: 1. assurance that should they ever need anything, she would prefer they only call her as a last resort; and 2. a new ringtone. One which, Dean quickly discovered, was password protected.  He lifts himself off of Cas’s chest, suddenly a little self-conscious about the whole affair, and goes to pick up his phone. Cas just laughs and raises himself up on his elbows.

            “Hello?”

            “What the _hell_ did you idjits do this time!?” Garth’s thick twang sounds over the receiver.

            “What do you mean what did we do? We haven’t done shit in months! I’m friggin’ dying of cabin fever over here!”

            “Well somebody did something. A huge faction of angels just found their way into Kansas.”

            Dean clenches and unclenches his fist as he processes what Garth has just said.

            “Where.”

            “Three or four hours outta Lebanon.”

            “ _Where,_ Garth?”

            “Oh no, no, no. Don’t you even think about going after them.”

            “Well I’m no use staying here!”

            “You’re no use dead, either.”

            “Dean, what’s going on?” Cas asks, getting to his feet.

            “Nothing, Cas.”

            Cas narrows his eyes for a split second and crosses the length of the mat.

            “Don’t lie to me,” he says, low and quiet.

            “Listen, there’s a strong possibility the angels don’t even know you’re in the state. So don’t go startin’ something you know you can’t finish.” Says Garth. Dean rubs his palm into the socket of one eye and looks at Cas with the other. The fact that Cas is still standing in a fighting stance doesn’t escape his notice.

            “Alright. Alright. We’ll stay put. But you call me the second those wingless dicks get any closer, you understand?”

            “I understand, Dean. We’re working on getting y’all off lockdown, so just sit tight and take care of yourselves.”

            “Yeah. Thanks Garth.”

            Dean ends the call and turns his attention to Cas who looks, despite his established age, like a sullen teenager.

            “You wanna know what’s going on then?” Dean asks.

            “Yes,” says Cas. He crosses his arms over his bare chest.

            “The angels are in Kansas and we don’t know why.”

            “Oh.”

            “Yeah. Oh.” Dean grabs his shirt off the bench to his right and pulls it over his head. “I wasn’t trying to lie. I just didn’t think you’d care to be honest.”

            Cas’s arms drop. They hang by his sides, limp as a rag doll’s.

            “How could I not care?” he asks, the slightest hint of emotion leaking into his voice.

            Dean stares at him, incredulous. Kevin, Sam, Crowley, Cas – they’re all driving him nuts with their secrets and their mood swings. An irritation Dean didn’t even know was fully there bubbles to the surface and he can’t help but voice it.

            “Oh, I don’t know, let’s see. You refuse to help with the tablet. You scream at a kid who’s given up his whole life to give us a fighting chance – to give _you_ a fighting chance in particular. You leave the room when I so much as mention heaven or the douchebag who’s locked himself up there. But, of course, how could we _possibly_ think that you don’t care? What could have given any of us _that_ idea?” Dean’s words echo around the training room before it falls silent. That may have come out a little more hostile than he intended, but Kevin’s right about one thing. Walking on eggshells is getting real old, real fast. Dean turns to go, and is stopped short of the entrance.

            “I do care, Dean,” says Cas – a little too forcefully. “I do.”

            Dean glances back at his friend, who looks so small and so human. His shoulders are slumped, his eyes just as piercing as ever, and there’s something sad about the way he stares. It’s like he’s pleading. Dean considers how strange their existence is. The close quarters amplify everything, take the volume and dial it up to eleven.  Minutes ago they were laughing and joking and unacknowledged rules were being thoroughly broken. And now… as much as Dean feels sorry for Cas—and he does—nothing good ever comes of pity. He walks out of the training to find Sam and relay Garth’s message. Before he leaves he calls back to Cas and his words echo in the wide open space between them.

            “Then start acting like it.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey guys! Here's the new chapter!  
> Like I promised!  
> Totally on time!  
> Totally not FOUR MONTHS LATE.
> 
> See the things is, GISHWHES happened... and then school happened... and then I got a serious case of writer's block... BUT I FINISHED. I didn't abandon this story! Or you! I'm working on the 7th chapter as we speak and I hope to have it done in two weeks TOPS. 
> 
> I apologize for the wait. I'm seriously embarrassed with how long this took me to write and I'm sorry I left you guys hanging. I also apologize that this chapter isn't full of excitement. This is one of the reasons it took me so long to churn out. But it's a necessary chapter and I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! 
> 
> Again, I owe the world to my fabulous Beta [Chandler](http://danneelwinchester.tumblr.com/). When I try to write Dean as a literary heroine from the 1800's, she beats me with a wooden stick and sends me back to the drawing board. 
> 
> I don't own Supernatural. I don't own these characters. I don't own a calender either, apparently. 
> 
> Thanks so much for waiting. You are all lovely readers.

           

***

            He can’t find it. A headache, which has been threatening to overtake Dean since his morning spat with Kevin, pounds against the sides of his head. And he can’t find the damn bag. It should be tucked at the back of his underwear drawer, a drawstring pouch filled with little orange bottles. Excedrin and Xanax and Valium and Vicodin -- for the rough stuff. All mislabeled, none of the prescriptions made out to Dean. He turns the drawer upside down, shaking balled-up pairs of boxers to the floor. Dean scours his room, to no avail. Exasperated, he tracks Sam down in the den.

            “Did you borrow some aspirin or something?” Dean asks, leaning against the edge of the armchair.

            “No, why?” Sam looks up from his journal briefly before scrawling something else in the margins. File folders, stacks of books, and diagrams line the coffee table. The empty spaces beside Sam on the couch are hidden by research.

            “I can’t find my bag.” Dean doesn’t have to specify which bag he means.

            “Maybe you misplaced it?”

            “Maybe,” Dean grunts. He probably has a thousand dollars’ worth of medication stashed in that bag. He didn’t misplace it. He never misplaces it.

            “It’ll turn up, I’m sure,” says Sam, his eyes glued to an open book in front on him.

            Dean clears his throat. “Also, uh, last Thursday night. You didn’t commandeer the Mazda for a midnight snack run did ya?”

            “Uh… No.”

            “That’s what I thought.”

            Sam looks up from his Journal again.

            “Wait, what are you talking about?”

            “Well,” says Dean, pushing himself off the couch and wincing at the continued throbbing in his head. “Somebody took the car that night. Late. And didn’t come back for a while. Charlie’s tracker caught ‘em. Whoever did it stopped right outside of Clay Center -- about an hour or so from here. So, if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me…”

            “You think… Crowley?” Sam shuts his journal and sets it aside.

            “Unless Kevin—”

            “No, it couldn’t have been Kevin. He was out cold, remember?”

            And Dean does. Vividly. He still can’t scrub the stench of vomit out his work boots. He stares down at Sam and sees his brother sink slowly into the couch. His face is without expression, his eyes wide and focused on something invisible.

            “ _Shit,_ ” whispers Sam, dropping his arms to his sides.

            “My thoughts exactly,” Dean replies.

            “Do you know where he went? Is there anything around the area that could clue us in?”

            “I only know where he took the car. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.”

Sam shakes his head in slow disbelief. “Maybe it’s a glitch. Maybe the tracker’s gone haywire or something?”

“I texted Charlie about it,” says Dean. “She seems pretty confident that it’s not a glitch.

Sam sighs. “What do we do?”

            “I don’t know – But that dungeon we got’s looking pretty tempting right now.”

            “We can’t just throw him in the dungeon, Dean,” says Sam, slamming shut his book. A small cloud of dust erupts from the pages.

            “Why not?”

            “Because we don’t know what this means, yet.”

            Dean grimaces as pain shoots like a bolt of lightning up the base of his skull. “He’s a demon, Sam. We know what this means.”

            Sam sighs. He runs a hand through his hair and clenches his fingers. His eyes close. He takes a deep breath. How many times had Sam assured Dean that the cure would hold? How many hours had he spent watching Sam review the original cure tapes and files? Sam had read them over and over again, interviewed Crowley almost daily about his state of mind and emotional stability. Dean had allowed Sam to get chummy with Crowley. He hadn’t said a word.  And the two shared things now, like secrets and jokes. Dean had let it happen again. And now the revelation that “history repeats itself” starts to darken the skin under Sam’s eyes.

            “Let’s at least talk to him first. Maybe there’s an explanation to this that doesn’t end in shackles.” Sam opens his eyes and looks up through his eyebrows at his older brother.

            Dean nods. “Sure.”

            “I’m gonna finish this up,” says Sam, pointing to the mess on the table. “Give me like an hour, alright?”

            Dean nods again and leaves the room. There must be Tylenol in the hall bathroom. The pain is unholy -- like some asshole wraith is gnawing on his grey matter. And while Dean finds the right bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet, he tries to get the image of liquefied brains out of his head. He downs three Tylenol and a couple of Aspirin before closing his eyes and leaning hard against the sink. He dry swallows and the tablets stick as they slide down his throat. He feels more than tempted to take a serrated melon baller to his head – try and scoop out the parts radiating agony. He trudges down the stairs and into the kitchen and downs a can of soda. The caffeine should help eventually.

            The lights in the library sear his eyes shut and Dean turns them off before sitting in front of his laptop. It hums and whirs like a reminder. The path the Mazda took is just waiting in Charlie’s GPS tracker log. Turn by turn directions. Exact coordinates. Dean drops his head to the table and presses it, hard, against the wood. The pressure temporarily relieves some of the pain. He tries to think.

            …

            He tries, but everything’s fried.  Like an omelet. Like latkes. Like… fried things.

            _Where the fuck is my bag?_

            Things aren’t fitting together. The more he thinks about the pain, the more it hurts and the more it hurts, the more he thinks about it. He lifts his head and stares for a moment at the shut laptop. Highlighted roadways crawl over a bird’s eye of Kansas in his mind.

            Dean grabs the keys to the Impala off the table and jets out of the library.

            “I’M GOING OUT,” he yells to no one. The echoes of his shout only serve to clang around in his skull. He refuses to sit and wallow when he could be fighting. Fighting the headache, the inevitable confrontation with Crowley, the perpetual guilt that accompanies being himself.

He starts the car before anyone even realizes he’s left.  

***

            Twenty minutes into the drive he stops wanting to bash his head against the steering column.

            Thirty minutes and he starts realizing how stupid it was for him to leave The Bunker at midday.  Especially when, for all he knows, a gang of angels could be lurking at the nearest Gas n’ Sip. Garth’s assurance that he wouldn’t “be much use dead” plays like a loop in Dean’s broken mind. But he’s out now and he might as well go ahead with the plan. Even if the plan is stupid too. Dean would rather eat his own hand than try and sit Crowley down for a pleasant little chat about his midnight roadtrip. With evidence, it’ll be hell of a lot easier to convince Sam that they really don’t need to _talk it out_.

And the best place to find evidence is the scene of the crime.

            Eventually Dean’s headache dulls enough to allow him to turn on the radio. He keeps it low though, just loud enough to hear over the sounds of the road, which flies beneath him at breakneck speed. Though his view is mostly of black tar and tree lines, he passes a couple of derelict farm houses – the kind that would probably be haunted. Their roofs sag or cave in completely and the wood panels that line their sides have all faded to the same shade of grey. The whole damn town is grey. As a result, it’s hard to miss the curio shop approaching on his right. The afternoon sun blinds him, but not so much that he can’t tell the place is covered in Christmas lights. They’re multi-colored. Some blink, but whether that’s from neglect or on purpose, is a mystery. He can make out the reflective silhouettes of dozens of statues sitting outside the shop. They line the pathway to the front door, big ones and small ones, but Dean can’t tell what they’re supposed to be. He cranes his neck as the house-turned-tourist-trap draws closer. Finally it draws near enough for him to read the sign swinging out front.

            _WELCOME TO THE ANGEL DEN_

            And that’s when Dean sees the wings. Pairs upon pairs of stone wings. They extend in different ways – rear up to take flight or curl into the backs of their hosts. They’re made heavy from granite and marble. The angels stare at one another -- smiling benevolently, gathered around the garden path like old relatives at a family dinner. A couple of them are cracked and leaning against one another. It’s a strange little shop, Dean thinks. The Impala roars past the garish display. Before it’s out of his sightline he notices a large black hatchback hiding in the shaded drive. It’s a hearse, freshly washed, and all dressed up for a funeral. Cas probably saw The Den on his way into town that first day after The Fall, trudging through the brush, making his way to his own den. His own brittle friends. Dean has an urge to turn around, burn the whole house to the ground and salt the ashes. But he keeps driving.

 

***

            _Freshly plucked angels litter the earth like road kill._

_They stand confused in fields, lit by the Maglites of cops, collecting near the edge of deserted highways. Dean sees so many of them as he races from South Dakota home to Lebanon. Sam groans occasionally from the back – curled up on his side, his feet flush against the car door._

_“It’s just a little ways to go, Sammy. You think you can handle that?” he keeps asking, as if the response will have changed in the last thirty minutes._

_“I can handle it,” Sam says. Over and over again he says it. Each time the words sting of something different. Sometimes they are genuine and determined, and other times they sound like the last whispers of a dying man. And they could be. Dean fumbles with the radio station to try and keep them both preoccupied. He settles on independent stations. They play the kind of music Sam likes to listen to – all mellow guitar and minor chords and crooners.  The throaty voices carve out hollow spaces in Dean’s chest. In between songs the deejays talk traffic and weather. Highway whatever is backed up to the frontage road. Kansas is experiencing a drastic temperature spike. Cloudless and in the hundreds. Dean longs for the easy passion of a Heart single, but doesn’t dare touch his cassette collection._

_They pull into the drive of The Bunker as the sun begins to rise. The sky’s been dyed an ashy yellow. Muddy. Dean helps Sam from the car as hastily and gently as he can. Kevin meets them at the door with a million questions, but Dean ignores them in favor of getting Sam to a bed. He seems to be wincing less, the pain coming and going in waves that Dean can sense from the set of Sam’s jaw._

_Dean enlists Kevin to help him get Crowley out of the trunk. The kid handles the tied-up demon like a lump of rotten meat, a_ heavy _lump of rotten meat, and Dean suspects it’s not entirely accidental when Kevin drops the bastard on his head. Twice._

_After an hour or two it seems clear that Sam isn’t gonna kick the bucket right then and there, but this fact doesn’t put Dean at ease. Kevin’s running ragged and Crowley is secure in the dungeon, so he decides to make a call. He picks up the phone and dials Garth. No answer. He calls Bobby – old habits die hard – and gets a recorded message that states the number is out of service. He scrolls through the contacts in his phone and there are so many numbers he doesn’t really need anymore. Half of them are defunct or useless. So he tends to Sam. And when he can’t do that, he paces and barks at Kevin and rubs at his tired eyes._

_“Kevin! Can you grab me a warm washcloth from the kitchen and some extra blankets from the laundry room?”_

_“Washcloth, blankets, got it.”_

_Dean takes a moment, breathing deeply and wondering who the hell he’s supposed to turn to now. He feels a pang of guilt as this thought settles. The responsibility lies with him. He could have fought harder to complete the trials himself. He could’ve been the one pumping Crowley full of blood in that church. If only he’d done X, said Y. He’d be dead. He’d be dead, but Hell’d be closed and Sam would be back with Andrea, or whatever her name was. Living a normal life, anyhow. The whole conversation is pointless._

_He stands with his head in his hands._

_“Um. Dean?”_

_Dean whips around and Kevin holds a wrinkled blanket and two washcloths out for him._

_“Thanks. You, uh, mind taking those into Sammy for me?”_

_The kid stands there, doesn’t say a thing, but nods. As Kevin’s footsteps echo up the stairs, Dean slumps into a chair. His arm itches. He scratches at it absentmindedly until he notices a dark spot on the arm of his shirt. Rolling up his sleeve reveals a gash – not too deep, but deep enough to be scabbing over. He must have cut himself on the Impala’s sharp edges when loading Sam into the back. Or maybe when shoving Crowley into the trunk. There are many benefits to owning an older car, but safety isn’t one of them. Dean stands to find a band-aid when a loud “thunk” sounds from outside The Bunker door. And despite how this startles him, what he finds on the other side startles him far more._

_He climbs the stairs and throws open the door, firearm in hand._

_“Cas?!”_

_The heat of the day in the afternoon sun rushes through the doorway and hits Dean like a brick wall. Castiel lies slumped over, leaning against the door jam. His eyelids flutter desperately as his hand grasps at the air in front of him. Dean doesn’t think, doesn’t even take time to process the relief filling him from the inside out, just stoops to help Cas over the threshold. They make it down the stairs and Dean deposits the spent man into a chair before noticing that something is seriously wrong. Cas sweats, beads of moisture rolling down his jaw and catching in the collar of his trench-coat._

_Cas_ sweats.

_Dean works quickly to remove the coat and the blazer underneath. Cas helps as he can, lifting his arms and shifting in his seat, but his disorientation doesn’t dissipate. There are dark sweat stains running the length of Cas’s button-up._

_Dean’s eyes widen as he examines his friend. Cas’s face and hands are covered with little scrapes and bruises, like those Dean used to get in childhood, on the rare occasion Bobby let he and Sam loose to play in the bramble-filled woods.  The bridge of Cas’s nose is red with sunburn, a blister forming on the skin. He gasps every now and again as if the air might disappear if he doesn’t inhale it now. And none of these things should be happening, but the sweat concerns Dean most. On a hunch, pinches the skin of Cas’s wrist between his fingers._

_Dehydration._

_He bolts to the kitchen and pulls a bottle of water from the fridge. When he returns to the control room and holds the chilled bottle against Cas’s cheek, the angel moans in relief, pressing harder against the plastic. Condensation slicks Dean’s palm as he breaks open the cap and tilts the mouth of the bottle against Cas’s dry lips. Cas drinks. Slowly, and with some difficulty, but he drinks. When he begins to cough and sputter, water spraying from his mouth, Dean pulls the bottle away, but Cas whines. He opens his mouth wider – helpless like a starving hatchling. He looks so desperate. Dean averts his eyes from the sloppy gulps his friend takes. Cas needs him right now. Like diabetics need insulin, bees need honey. True, mortal need. And maybe Dean has been waiting for this day to come, but his half-bitter wishes don’t make the reality of the situation any easier to handle. The needle always hurts no matter how far in advance the doctor gives warning._

_"Castiel?" Kevin almost trips down the staircase as he reenters the control room. "Is he hurt? How did he get here? Does he still have… you know…" He flaps his arms up and down like a child determined to fly._  

 _"I don't know," Dean says. "Go get me an ice pack or two, will ya? I think he's got heat stroke." Still_ _pouring water into Cas's mouth, Dean watches Kevin bound into the kitchen. His sneakers disappear around the archway of the library just as Cas comes to. He jolts awake, slopping water down his front. His eyes widen as he reaches out to grip Dean tightly by the forearm._  

 _"You have to run," he croaks. His nails dig into Dean's skin. "She'll find you. She knows. It's a trap."_  

 _"Cas it's okay. It's all okay, you're safe now --"_  

_"I'm not safe -- no one is safe."_

_“You’re confused, Cas, that’s all. Nothing’s gonna happen. Drink some more of this.” Dean extends the bottle to Castiel who pushes it away with urgency._

_“This is a part of it! Everything you see is a part of her simulation. She’s been training me… training me to...”—Cas stumbles over the words before finally spitting them out—“to kill you, Dean. She knows that I could never… She knows and she has a hold of me and she won’t stop until you’re dead. I can’t save you, Dean. I could never save you. I can’t…” Cas’s eyes roll back into his head. His grip slackens._

_“No, no, no, Cas. Come on.” Kevin enters with the icepacks. “Hurry! Get ‘em over here!” Kevin does as he’s told and helps Dean to stuff the packs under Cas’s armpits. He smells of dirt and foliage. Sweat – that stale cornflake kind of musk. Dean swats at Cas’s cheek a little with the pads of his fingers. “Wake up, buddy. Come on.” He slides his hand under the weight of Cas’s skull and lifts his head to meet the water bottle. Cas’s mouth rejects the liquid, more of it pouring onto his chest. Without thinking, Dean pulls his arm back and slaps Cas across the face. The unconscious man jolts awake, but his head lolls from side to side. He begins to speak, lazily slurring his speech. Dean can’t understand a word Cas says and strains to hear better. He lowers his head and feels the warm air from Cas’s mouth tickle, wet, against his ear. The words fall out of Cas’s lips in a sold stream and they’re impossible to understand._

_“He’s speaking Enochian,” Kevin says._

_"Can you translate?" Dean asks as Cas tries and fails to stand up. Dean sets a hand on Cas's shoulder -- partially to keep him in his seat, and partially to reassure himself that Cas is actually there._  

 _"I can try." Kevin leans in to listen. The room goes pin-drop silent save Cas's muttering and Dean tries not to breathe. "It... sounds like a spell."_  

 _"What kind of spell? What's he saying?"_  

 _"Something about protection." Kevin closes his eyes in concentration. "Hiding the location of something? Someone --"_  

 _"Who? Kevin who is he trying to hide from? Naomi?"_  

 _"You," says Kevin._  

 _Dean does a double take."He's hiding from_ me? _"_  

 _"No. He's... hiding you. Protecting you." Kevin averts his eyes from the two men, then continues. "But it doesn't make sense. This spell is powerful. It's only an incantation -- so it has to be."_  

 _"Meaning...?"_  

 _"Something should be happening. It's not working." Sam coughs from the other room and Cas stops speaking abruptly. "Dean, why isn't it working?" Kevin asks like he already knows the answer._  

 _"It's gone," croaks Cas. "I can't feel it anymore. It's gone."_  

 _"What's gone? Cas,_ talk to me _."_  

 _"Me," he replies, his eyes shining -- looking past Dean and Kevin at something far away. Far away from him and the bunker and Kansas. "I'm gone."_  

 

***

 

"Arrive at destination." 

 

Dean taps out of the GPS app on his phone to avoid being pestered by anymore haughty voice commands. Sometimes he misses the days of paper maps. At least they were mute.  

 

The destination at which he's meant to have arrived appears to be a bank of trees running along the highway. He pulls over and steps out of the Impala. The road is deserted, but not quiet. Birds, squirrels, insects chirp and shout from the tree line while Dean circles around the hood of the car.

 

“If I was the neutered ex-King of Hell,” he mutters. “Where would I go..?”

 

Dean starts to inspect the area and stomps through a patch of sand burrs, the little thorn-ed stickers clutching his pant legs and scratching his calves through the denim.   

 

"Ow, shit!" He spends the next couple of minutes balanced against the trunk, pulling burrs out of his jeans. How did Cas do it -- trudge through this for eight long hours and in the midst of a heat wave too? No water in his system? No food either? He should have honestly faired much worse than he had, but other than a curable case of heat stroke and a ravenous appetite, Cas had been fine -- was fine. For the most part.  

 

It takes Dean a while to find the hidden dirt path; it lurks behind a gnarled oak tree. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end when he first spots it and any remaining hope that the whole thing's a fluke slips from his grasp. The sun draws closer to the horizon as he pushes past the brush and into the woods. The branches of the surrounding trees hang low over the trail. For something supposedly used so recently, the walkway screams of neglect. When Dean finally makes it out of the weeds, he hits a clearing. A large, round clearing cut from the thick of the forest. Once again, something about the area sets off Dean's sense of impending danger. His fingers grip the handle of the gun resting at the small of his back.  

 

The clearing opens up to a cottage as neglected as the trail leading to it. The windows are caked with dirt, the door kicked-in and barely clinging to its rusted hinges. Dean sidesteps toward the structure. The siding hangs loose from the outside walls and the porch slopes inward, warped from years and years of moisture. Dean's heart races. His stomach fills with the familiar acid burn of adrenaline. Slowly, he makes it up the collapsing porch stairs, over the rotting floorboards, and stops to the left of the doorway. He takes a moment to breath, to observe his surroundings. The forest seems to go quiet.

 

He decides in one moment to step forward, to round the edge of the door frame, and peer into the shelled-out home. The walls on the inside look just like the ones on the outside. Leaves that have blown in over time, huddle, clumped in corners and reeking of mildew. Though the floor creaks ominously with each step Dean takes, he walks forward. He scatters the piles of leaves with a boot heel and checks the walls for angel warding or spell work. There's no evidence of squatters -- demon, angel, or otherwise. In fact, there appears to be nothing supernatural about the house at all and by the time Dean finishes his inspection, he feels certain it must have been a technological error after all.  He'll have to rag on Charlie for this one. 

 

He hops down the porch steps and something catches his eye -- gleaming, just for a second from the bushes. Tilting his head to get a better look, it happens again. A bright flash from within the overgrown hedges blinds him momentarily. The closer Dean gets, the more the object reflects the fading light of the sun and he stoops to rummage in the leaves. His fingers paw around in the dirt, scraping at something cold and metallic. Finally he gets a grip on the rounded handle of the thing and pulls it out --  _an angel blade_. Sharp, triangular, encrusted in blood. The relief Dean was feeling moments before slides out of his stomach and is replaced by a sharp aching sensation. He stands, the angel blade in one hand, the other fishing around for the phone in his pocket. But it's not there. It's where he left it, on the seat of the Impala. He curses under his breath. Leave it to him to remember a gun but forget a goddamn cell phone.  

 

He quickly stows the blade in his inside jacket pocket and starts sprinting through the forest. Branches whip past his ears and scrape up his neck, but he doesn't stop. If it weren't for the light cresting over the hill now, streaming through the tops of the trees and casting a golden haze over the trail, Dean might expect to meet a vampire around the next corner. He might expect Benny to sneak up from behind it while Dean does his best imitation of helpless bait. He might huddle up against a tree to get some sleep while Benny keeps watch. He might dream of Cas by a river, drinking in the gloom of the world around him. Drowning in it... 

 

Dean makes it to the Impala before sunset and almost kisses his baby hello. Instead, he yanks open the passenger door and slides into the driver's seat. His breath comes in huffs and pants. He unlocks his phone -- five missed calls from Sam, a couple voicemails too, and a single text from Cas. Not wanting to stay near the house any longer than he has to, Dean starts the car and does a U-turn back onto the highway. He speeds out away, cradling his phone in the crook of his neck to return Sammy's calls.  

 

"Hello? Dean?" Sam's voice is faint and tinny.  

"Yeah, It's me. Why do you say that like a question? Who else is it gonna be?" 

"I don't know, maybe whoever murdered you and threw you in a ditch, considering I thought you were  _dead._ " 

Dean can hear the snark through the phone. "I'm sorry I took off. I was crawling up the goddamn walls stuck in that place." 

"Join the club,” Sam scoffs.

"Fine, be pissed all you want. I've got bad news anyway." 

There's a pause on the other end. "Bad news?" Sam asks. 

"Yeah. I just left the place Crowley's been to visit on his secret little roadtrips --" 

" _Dean what the he_ \--" 

"--And I found something." 

"Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed? Jesus. What did you find?"  

Dean glances over at the blade resting next to him on the seat.  "Nothing good. It's getting dark and I'm driving back now. We'll talk more when I get home." 

Sam sighs. "Fine." 

"Just don't let Crowley leave -- for any reason, got it?" says Dean.  

"Yeah. I got it." 

"Alright, see ya soon." 

"Bye." 

 

Dean hangs up the phone. He taps over to his text messages.  

 

He stares at the screen a moment too long and drifts onto the shoulder. The sounds his tires make against the rough asphalt tear him away from the phone and he directs the car back into the center of the lane. He really shouldn't text and drive. But he does anyway.  

 

He puts the phone down and returns his attention to the road. He savors the drive, lets the grip of the wheel beneath his hands ground him. It's his last chance to think before he has to deal with Crowley. Before he has to kick it into high gear. Then again, Dean always seems to be operating at 500%. Rest, peace, relaxation -- all foreign concepts. He tries, certainly, he tries. He'll kick up his feet, close his eyes, and take deep breaths, but his mind won't stop racing. Someone needs something. Something needs doing. Problems need solving.  

The sky darkens and Dean drives westward. He passes by The Angel Den again. The hearse has been moved, but the Christmas lights still shine, hanging from the eaves of the house like warm-weather icicles. They wink at Dean and throw light onto the faces of the angels below them. Each stone seraph shifts and dances, as if painted through the eye of a kaleidoscope. They live. Dean watches The Den grow smaller and smaller in his rearview mirror, until it can no longer be seen -- blinking or otherwise. He feels around in the seat next to him until he finds his phone again.  

 

 

***

  

 


End file.
